Giving birth with confidence

Yachi, one of our pet cats, just gave birth to 4 kittens last night!!!

The whole evening I was so frantic, not knowing what to do, how to help our pet the moment she started getting restless and showed signs of labor.

I was rubbing Yachi's spine tenderly when I noticed movements in her tummy. Oh the babies are moving now, I told myself! Yah, there were movements in all sides of her tummy which gave me this idea that there is more than one kitten inside her.

Truth is although I have given birth to 2 daughters myself, both of them were delivered by caesarian section (CS) and that leaves me with no idea how it feels to give birth the natural way. Nope, got no first-hand experience of having labor pains. My OB used to tease me that I didn't give birth at all. My babies just popped out of my tummy. These thoughts only made me feel more incompetent last night as I was sitting there beside Yachi.

"Oh, Mom," my eldest daughter kept reminding me. "Don't worry. Cats know what to do! This is something they do by instinct, and would be better off without us intervening at all!" She really sounds so confident here. I remember it well how excited she was when Ducky, our pet dog, delivered her first babies a few years ago. Okay, allow me to digress here for a while.

I was working on an evaluation report then when we noticed Ducky getting restless. This, we easily recognized as signs of 'nesting'. I couldn't leave my writing work at that moment because I knew it would be difficult to go back again to this 'mode' the moment I turn my attention to somethings else.

So Bam was the one who stayed with Ducky while giving birth inside her whelping box. Every few minutes Bam was announcing, "Hey Ma, there's one now.....Ma!.... there's another one here!!" ... until she finally said with an amazed voice, "Ma, there are 5 of them here now? They look like dugong!!!"

Okay, okay, back to Yachi. This time she agreed to stay in the same room where Yachi is ... as I really couldn't contain my excitement and might affect Yachi's own birthing process.

A few minutes later we heard a small sound. While holding back our breath, we slowly peeped inside the old zipped 'cabinet' (where I keep my house clothes, a place Yachi chose to be her nesting place, while ignoring the box we made for her) and saw Yachi licking a very tiny kitten. After assuring Yachi with our soft voices that we are just around, we went back to what we were doing earlier.

Within the next hour, we saw 3 new babies, still with eyes closed crawling around their mom. It was almost midnight when Bam decided to go back to her own room. It took me another hour before I decided to go to sleep, too, and stop checking on Yachi and her babies.

I was nearing dreamland when I was suddenly awakened by another YELP inside the 'cabinet'. I hastily stood up, turned on the lights and peeped inside to find another baby lying there beside Yachi. Hmmm, and that makes it four. Then I went back to bed again ...

The only thing I was thinking of while drifting back to dreamland last night was ... I hope all the four placenta have been out so that there won't be any complications or possibility of infection for Yachi...and I hope Yachi doesn't get suffocated or vomit from eating too many placenta ... zzzzzzzzzz

When I opened my eyes early this morning I saw Yachi step out of the zipped cabinet to drink from her water bowl...and was eating ravenously. That was the only time a heaved a sigh of relief and started to relax. Hayy...

Must have been a long night for her. It's really amazing how cats can give birth on their own, and to four babies all in a row!!!

I have listed a few materials that helped us understand and prepare when our pet dog and cat were about to give birth.

Related links:

• Care of Mother Dogs and Puppies
• A dog giving birth? how to help
• Cats Giving Birth to Kittens
• Queening (Giving Birth in Cats)

That's all for now. Thanks for dropping by and hope you visit again! I will be posting more stories here in the next few days.