Fear

Yes, this is a kitty post, but first, one more reminder: Don’t forget to vote in the Cozy Noir Pre-Contest Contest.

Some of you will recall that Buttons was first due with a litter back in February. And, on February 14, the very day that Buttons and her brother Rascal were born, Buttons delivered.

It didn’t go well. Three beautiful, breech-birth stillborn kittens. I won’t freak you out with the details of my trauma, trying to help with these deliveries.

It was just all-round sad and disturbing.

As much as we hadn’t really wanted to deal with kittens, Kevin felt maybe we should let her try again. I wasn’t so sure. But then, an inability to persuade him to take action resulted in another swelling belly from our resident female cat.

We were well off the mark in estimating the due date this time. Well, okay, about a week. We’d decided this time, we’d confine her to my office, her own food and litter box and all she’d need, no Skittles pestering her. Rascal’s rather indifferent, being fixed.

Well, in the end, she took refuge in the litter box because it was the only place she could get away from Skittles, and delivered Stuart.

I woke Kevin up and got him to help. While I washed Stuart, Kevin delivered Russel on the bathroom floor.

The deliveries of Simon and Rebus were far less eventful. That’s to say she gave birth in the middle of the night, in our bedroom, and we were woken up by frantic kitty crying.

And this time, all was well.

But I couldn’t stop worrying.

We’d read in the cat book how, sometimes, if the mother doesn’t have enough strength to feed all the kittens she’ll try to kill one. This is something I saw with dogs, as a child. The neighbour’s dog, Taffy, gave birth to a large litter. 12 puppies in all. Faster than you can say “gross” she ate three of them.

And because originally Buttons and her babies were in my office, I was watching like a hawk, for any sign of trouble.

Things seemed to be going well, until the day that I came in and there were only three kittens in their area, feeding. I started having a panic attack, looking around for the missing Stuart.

It turned out that Buttons had carried him all the way to the back of the closet and set her down behind the boxes and files and such.

I started pulling everything out, but it wasn’t until my disruption prompted Stuart to cry that I actually let out my breath.

I returned Stuart to the family. And Buttons promptly picked her up (oh, yeah, Stuart is a she) and returned her to the back of the now-empty closet.

As best as we could figure, Buttons had been scared by Skittles. He’d gotten into my office, gotten close to the litter. Of course we removed him almost immediately, but it wasn’t almost enough.

We moved the gang and all of Buttons’ stuff to our bedroom. And again, when Skittles darted in the door once (he’s fast, that little turkey) I returned to the bedroom later to find only three babies in the area.

Simon was in the far corner of our bedroom, on the bottom of the cat climbing house.

I relocated the family again, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. I still wake up with this panic in the morning, rushing to check that they’re all alive.

Something I haven’t done for a while, not since Kevin almost died in Africa. Well, technically, he did stop breathing so maybe he was dead. Don’t ask me. I was almost out of my mind with fear.

And it makes me think about how, a character coping with real or perceived fear, can really go right over the edge.

Because having kittens should be nothing but joy and happiness until the day we have to give some away.

But I still worry about them, and they’re four weeks old tomorrow.






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