HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABIES!

Jezibel, 10 days before delivery

Let’s go back in time.......say, 11 years ago today, Wednesday, March 22, 2000........

This is what I would be saying that day:

I talked to Charlie last night. It was about 7:30 p.m. my time. He was in Yokosuka, Japan and it was the next day there. Anyway, I told him that I thought Jezibel was going to have her babies. He said, “That figures. I knew she’d wait until I couldn’t be there”. I agreed.

Before I went to bed, I noticed that Jezibel was trying to make a bed in my shower. I took a blanket and laid it down for her. I thought, “If she has the babies there, I’ll just take a shower in the upstairs bathroom”. I went to bed thinking I’d see kittens in the morning.

Sometime early, around 4:00 a.m., I was gently awakened by Jezibel. She was mewing and purring really loud. She never has much to do with me and if Charlie is at home, she doesn’t give me a second look. Well, she was insistent about waking me up. I knew she was in trouble.

I got up and called the emergency vet. They said to bring her in immediately. When we got there, they took her right in and did an X-ray to see what the problem was. They said there were at “least” eight kittens in there. I saw the picture and one of the kittens was blocking the birth canal. It looked like a little short, fat sausage curved, blocking any exit.

The doctor tried massaging and they gave Jezibel a labor inducer, hoping that between the massaging and the drug, she would be able to move the blockage. I was told to go on home and check back around 7:00 a.m. I went home and back to bed, not really worried, but concerned.

I called the vet at 7:00 a.m. to see if anything had happened. The massaging had worked. The kitten who was blocking had been born. It was a little female, a Calico (Lexi), like her mother. I went on to work, thinking that Jezibel was probably having the rest of the kittens.

I called the vet back about 10:00 a.m. and was told that another kitten had been born, a little boy, gray and white. That would be Toby. It was slow going, but the vet thought that Jezibel would eventually have the other kittens naturally.

At noon I received a call from the vet. He was very concerned. They had tried everything they could, to get Jezibel to finish having her babies. She was happily cleaning and licking the two kittens that she had. It was as if she said “I have my boy and girl and that’s perfect, I don’t need anymore”. They had taken the kittens away in hopes that Jezibel would have the rest. All she did was get frantic and they were afraid that would not be good, so they put them back in with her.

The doctor asked if he could do a caesarian because he was getting concerned about the kittens now. It had been several hours since Toby was born and Jezibel showed no inclination to let the other kittens be born. I said yes, go ahead, of course.

I called to check on Jezibel at 4:00 p.m. Congratulations! Jezibel now had 9 kittens! Seven boys and two girls. A tenth one had been still born. I never did know whether it was a boy or girl. I would be able to pick the kittens up after work. Since Jezibel had had surgery, she would have to stay overnight. Also, I would have to bottle feed the nine kittens when I got them home.

When I got to the vet’s to pick the kittens up, they took me in a room to learn how to bottle feed. I got a crash course from one of the tech’s who do this regularly at the hospital. I was excited to get home and get started.

When Charlie called that night, I gave him the news about our population explosion. He was as shocked as I had been that Jezibel had so many kittens. She was such a tiny girl. I told him to hurry home so he could help feed them. Jezibel would be able to feed them, but we would have to supplement because she wouldn’t be able to keep them all fed enough. It was also important that each kitten get enough of Jezibel’s milk because it helped with their immune systems.

The next day I checked to see when Jezibel could come home. They told me to come by at 2:00 p.m. I took off work to go and get her. I took her home in a kennel. As soon as we came in the front door, she started meowing. I took her upstairs to the room where the kittens were. She came out of the kennel and went straight to the basket of kittens, got in with them, curled up and started licking them. I had already come home at lunch and fed them, so I waited awhile for her to say hello to all of her babies.

Jezibel with all nine of her babies
3/23/00

I wondered if she was a little surprised to see nine kittens. The last time she saw them, there were only two babies, Lexi and Toby. Where did all the others come from? She didn’t seem to mind a bit.

After a couple of days, Charlie came home. He immediately got in the routine of feeding the kittens at 5:00 a.m. each morning. We each took a kitten and fed it until they were all fed. Then we went back over each one to make sure they had enough. Then we went to work. I came home at noon and fed all nine kittens. I loved that, having them all to myself! After work, we both repeated our early morning routine. Before bedtime, we fed them all again to make sure they had enough to get through the night.

Charlie feeding Ellie, 3/26/00

One of the little boys, a little orange one, was very fragile. He was the smallest of the litter and he didn’t eat very well. We took extra care to make sure he was eating. We were also having a problem with Jezibel moving the kittens.

We had set up a bed in the walk-in closet upstairs. She would move them from one side to the other. They were only a few days old. One day we caught her carrying one of the kittens downstairs. We took it back upstairs and did a head count. No one was missing, so she had just started the move. As long as she stayed in the closet area, we let her move the kittens if she wanted, but we didn’t want them out of that area because it was warm.

The kittens were growing so fast. We were still very concerned about the little boy who was so weak. We left him in the box with Jezibel and the others because he needed the warmth.

On Friday morning, March 31, the kittens were 9 days old. I went in the kitchen to get the formula and bottles ready while Charlie went to check on the kittens. He came down and told me that we had lost the little boy. He had passed away sometime during the night or early morning. He had been alive when we went to bed. We were so upset about it, but we really didn’t think he was getting better or stronger. We quietly fed the other kittens and Charlie buried him on the hillside, near Calvin.

Jezibel was on the move again. When we got home from work that afternoon, she had moved all of her kittens to my closet downstairs. We decided to just let her keep them there in hopes she would stop moving them.

We had a party to go to that night. We got home around 1:00 a.m. When we checked on the kittens in my closet, six of them were in the bed together, Jezibel was nearby with one of them (Pinto) and one was a couple of feet away, all by himself. He was cold to the touch, but was still alive. While I heated towels in the dryer, Charlie kept the kitten, another little orange boy, next to his chest with a blanket covering him. I called the vet to see if we should bring him in. I was told that we were doing all we could do, try to get him warm.

We stayed up with the kitten all night, rubbing him and warming him. He lost his fight for life at dawn. We were devastated to lose another one. It made us wonder if we would lose more. This kitten business wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

We’re sure that the kitten was strong enough to survive if it had not been moved away from the others and gotten too cold. Maybe there was something wrong with it and that’s why Jezibel separated it. She had stayed with the one. We’ll never know. We only know that he ate well and he was strong, trying to climb out of the box, etc. Whereas the one we lost early that morning, was not strong and was not improving.

Well, that did it. We moved Jezibel and the seven remaining kittens back upstairs. Maybe Jezibel knew that we had had enough and weren’t taking any more chances. She stopped moving the kittens. They got bigger, started coming out of the closet. We made a little pen for them. We weaned them onto solid food. What a mess that was, but they learned to eat finally. We put a little box in the corner and they all started going to one area to use the bathroom. Pretty soon we had them litter trained.

The kittens in their "training" pen
Chelsi watches in awe

When they were 4 weeks old, we invited friends to come and pick one out. My friend at work, Brian, chose Mr. Creme and Toby. Kim chose Pinto and Minerva chose Panda. We kept Lexi, Ellie, and Grady.

The kittens on display left to right
Pinto, Grady, Mr. Creme, Lexi, Toby, Panda and Ellie

All kittens at 4 weeks old
Easter Sunday, 4/23/00

Kim's Pinto
Grady

Mr. Creme

Lexi
Toby

Minerva's Panda
Ellie

When the kittens were a year old, I had a birthday party for them. Kim came over with Pinto; Minerva came with Panda. Brian had been in the process of moving and I was keeping Mr. Creme and Toby for him. So, with them and ours, all seven kittens were together again.

It was a fun party and we thought it would be a good idea to get together every year, but of course we haven’t been able to get all seven “kittens” together again.

Our Grady passed away last year. We miss having him with us. He was a special boy.

So today is their 11th birthday. They are all loved and will always be special to us. I would do it all over again if I could. I’m so happy that they all went to good homes. Brian couldn’t keep Mr. Creme and Toby, so we got them back in December 2002, before they turned three in March.

Kim and Minerva still have their boys, Pinto and Panda. They will always be taken care of and loved. I do get to see Pinto and Panda sometimes and I have to say that I’m really proud that we took care of them for their first 8 weeks and we loved it.

Jezibel has moved on from motherhood. She now denies ever having any kittens.

More later..........