Preparing for the Birth

It's now less than a week before Mod Daeng is due to have her babies. She's sticking close to me whenever I'm home, and starting to show nesting behavior as she noses her way around the perimeter of the office, bedroom, and bathroom and every nook and cranny, drawer and closet in between. No pile of paper is safe (now where did I put that bank statement?!?!?!?), and she is particularly interested in bags of every size and texture.

Today I took Mod Daeng to my vet, Dr. Rachel Boltz at Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos, California. Rachel has a great fondness for Burmese as she grew up with one. She had given Mod Daeng a health exam when I first brought her back from Southern California, and is fascinated by her story and our Burmese outcross project. So we both were eager to see how many heads and spines we could count in the x-ray taken of Mod Daeng's bulging belly.

One, two, three, four could be seen crowded together close to Mod Daeng's front legs, their heads splayed out like a bouquet of roses . . . and the fifth, maybe a sixth pointing the opposite direction close to the exit. So five kittens for sure, six perhaps (I think her belly is bigger on one side, so it may be an odd number). And likely four breech births unless the ones in front can find a way to turn around in the next few days, which is doubtful! At least it looks like the first one will come out head first.

The kittens also look big. Mod Daeng, with five or six 60 day old kittens in her belly, weighs nearly twelve pounds. She is considerably larger than my other Burmese females, even larger than my stud male. I wonder how big she will be as an adult.

Now that we know how many kittens to expect, it's a waiting and frequently double and triple checking to be sure she's not in labor game. Birthing to me is quite nerve-wracking, especially with a new, untried mother, and even more so with a rare and precious Suphalak! I don't know whether she'll have an easy birth, accept the babies to nurse, have enough milk, know to lick their little bottoms. I hope there won't be any problems as I have grown very fond of this chatty girl -- I wonder if it is the Siamese in her that produces the ongoing humming, occasionally grumbling, commentary as I stroke her back or scratch her chin. Louder grumbling as other kitties come near, though she's become more accepting of some, especially her buddy Gimli.

Gimli is a sable Burmese who is about the same age as Mod Daeng, and will be going to a new home in October. He was small as a kitten, and so I was leery of placing him in a home until I could figure out the reason for what appeared to be stunted growth. I'm still not sure what caused that, but I did discover that he has a deformed xyphoid process - it sticks out where the ribs come together at the sternum, rather than laying flat. It feels strange and I worried whether surgery should be done to fix or remove it, but my vet wasn't concerned and it certainly hasn't slowed Gimli down. He is in fact the energizer bunny of my cattery, while paradoxically also the most calm and fearless Burmese I've ever had, which is why he became the perfect companion for Mod Daeng. When I decided Mod Daeng had been here long enough to introduce her to another cat, it was Gimli I put in with her. She grumbled at him initially but he payed no mind. And within a day or two they were playing and chasing each other in the cage, bouncing from the top of the litter box to the shelf to the scratching post. It became quickly obvious that they needed more space and so out they came to frolic together in the bedroom. And she never grumbles, even in her pregnant state, when Gimli lies close to her.

Mod Daeng is due on Friday - though the kittens may of course come earlier or later. Tomorrow is Monday and I'll be off to work -- luckily I live only 10 minutes away from Stanford University, so I can pop home at lunch or other times if needed to check her. I don't think her milk has started to come in, so it will be at least a couple more days. At night and while I am out of the house she will be caged with a nice big cardboard box lined with fresh bedding that I've prepared for her, just in case. I have my supplies nearby -- dental floss to tie off the cords, blunted scissors to cut them, a bulb syringe to remove fluid from kittens' mouths, fresh washcloths and towels and a hair dryer to dry off the babies, KY jelly if needed for a stuck baby, heating pad for the kittens that have arrived while mom is pushing out the next one, her favorite chicken baby food to give her some energy mid-labor . . . . what else do I need? I'll go through the list many times in my head before the kittens start to arrive.

And the biggest concerns -- will Mod Daeng let me help her as she gives birth, will any kittens get stuck, and will any be sepia! Please. oh please let there be at least two sepia girls or a sepia girl and a sepia boy would be ok too! And if we could also have two mink boys, please, I have a client that really, really, really wants kittens that have that old style Burmese look. And if the others could have broader heads and muzzles that would be nice too . . .

But of course over my years of breeding Burmese I've asked Mother Nature for certain sexes and colors before, even colors that according to genetic charts would surely appear, but as you know Mother Nature does what she wants. So we'll just have to wait until the kittens are born to see what they look like, and even that may take time depending on how close the mink and sepia colors look at birth.

In the meantime, I'm taking deep breaths, am going to have to be patient, will say a few prayers, and hopefully we'll have some great news to share with the Burmese community at the end of the week!