Things we never imagined we’d be doing in Zambia

After a fun month in the UK we arrived back to find our cat ‘Mischief’ very heavily pregnant.

Lucy and Albert were ecstatic with the news. We were also excited but a little apprehensive!

Good friends of ours have had cats with 4 litters in the past so we sought their advice.

They confirmed – yes she was definitely pregnant, with 4 or 5 kittens and probably going to give birth this week! Can you imagine if we’d arrived back a week later?

  Google is most helpful and unhelpful for these sorts of things – helpful for all the advice about how to tell when your cat is going into labour and not helpful for readings list of why the mothers might reject their kittens!

 Thankfully our good friends in the know were also excited and more than happy to be called upon when labour began.

Last night that happened  - an excited Lucy ran into the kitchen (just as we’d sent the kids to bed) announcing Mischief was in labour. We walked into Lucy’s bedroom (a safe place) and found her in the box we’d made looking a little sorry for herself.  We watched for a bit, amazed at her body when the contractions came, then decided there was not a lot to do at this point and we should give her some peace. Lucy and Albert were not about to go back to bed and sleep while kittens were being born so I sat them in front of the laptop watching Youtube videos on ‘cats giving birth’. We called our friend and decided just to wait until she arrived. Albert went to the ‘toilet’ about 20 minutes later and came running back in saying ‘There’s a kitten on Lucy’s bed’. I thought he was joking and I’d find Lucy’s toy kitten on the bed but no there really was a kitten on Lucy’s bed – Mischief in our absence had obviously decided that Lucy’s bed was a lot more warm and comfortable than the box in the cupboard. As I quickly whipped off Lucy’s books, toys, pillows and duvet I watched Mischief ‘lick the kitten alive’ to sounds of high pitched ‘arrrrrrrrrrr’s’ from the kids.

 It was truly amazing to see nature’s instincts kick in. How Mischief knew what to do from the start and how this tiny little ball of fur managed to wriggle around until it had found the nipple.

Our friend turned up then – just in time to help and the next hour we watched as 3 more kittens were born.  Albert had the best ‘view’ and commented ‘It looks like a marble coming out’.

Our kids had some brilliant biology lessons last night!

 About 11pm we managed to change Lucy’s bed sheets and get mother and babies into the box so we could go to bed.  I did wonder if the kids would be able to fall asleep after the excitement of the night but then realised that Albert had already fallen asleep watching the kittens and Lucy was just happy to be sharing her bed with them!

 Most of this morning has been spent watching the kittens and deciding on names. They currently look like mini white tigers, as they are all stripy black and white. We have decided to keep 2 – one each for Lucy and Albert. Albert’s keeping the 4^th kitten, who is clearly the strongest and as it is the most black and was born at night, has decided to call it Midnight. Lucy wants the runt of the litter – the one we were a little worried about as it didn’t seem alive for a few minutes - it came out really fast and so Lucy has called it ‘Shooting star’ or just ‘Star’ for short.

So what an experience – to be able to watch a cat giving birth and help in the process – rubbing their faces to ensure they took a breath and cutting the umbilical cords when our cat was just too exhausted to do any more ‘work’  - watching our children overcome with joy at the thought of all these kitten living with us ……Never thought we’d be doing this in Zambia!

It certainly is an adventure!