This post has been a long time coming. Back in early April, my husband called me with his now-famous line: "Tell me I did the right thing."
He was walking home from the bus stop and saw a pretty tuxedo cat. Then saw her giant belly. He immediately picked her up and took her home. She looked to be VERY pregnant.
First of all, about the names you are about to see, and the title of this post for those who don't recognize it: My husband and I both enjoy playing a trading card game called Magic: The Gathering. There are different types of cards, and some of them are called Planeswalkers, people with extraordinary abilities, to keep it short. There are quite a few of them at this point in time. When we knew we had a litter coming, we knew that's the theme we wanted, and the mother, Liliana, got her name (
Liliana Vess).
A couple days later, we took Liliana to the vet to get tested and general checkup to make sure everything was going okay with her pregnancy. We have went through the rescue process many many times. By now, testing for FIV/FeLV is just a formality to be safe and to have the records to give to whoever might end up adopting the cat. My heart sank down to my feet when the vet tech came out and said the test was positive for FIV. They retested her on the spot with a fresh sample, since the tech left the test unattended for a few extra minutes and just wanted to be sure. Again, she tested very strongly for FIV. The vet also told us she probably had about 2 weeks to go in her pregnancy, even though she was already massive and looked ready to pop.
It was a scramble to learn everything I could about FIV, especially since kittens would be coming into the world and I had to know what to expect. Thankfully, from my time volunteering at the animal shelter, I learned a bit about FIV already: that cats could live long lives with it, and that even friendly cats could live with non-FIV cats since it's only transmitted through deep bite wounds. During my research and talking to several vets, I further learned that it's actually pretty rare for kittens to get it from their mother, they don't get it through the mom's milk, and that kittens could falsely test positive up to 6 months old due to having their mother's antibodies. So things looked good to have healthy kittens. Side note: if you have any questions about FIV or want more information, please contact me - I'm more than happy to share what I've learned.
Exactly two weeks after the vet predicted two more weeks, on April 21, the kittens arrived.
We had went out to run some errands, and Lily wasn't even in labor. She looked peaceful and content when we left (we knew it was getting close!). By the time we got back a few hours later, she was delivering kitten #3.
This is where the story gets very sad and tumultuous.
Lily gave birth to 9 kittens, but 3 of them were stillborn. Those 3 are now lovingly buried in our garden and will not be forgotten. She had a very rough time during delivery and I had to help her out a few times. Even so, she was a great mom. Around 1 AM, she started settling down and it had been awhile since the last kitten, so I thought she was done. However, her belly still felt swollen and possibly like there were more in her - but she also ate a LOT of wet food during delivery, so I thought it could have also just been her very full tummy. I called an emergency vet just to find out how to tell if a cat was done giving birth or if there were more. The triage tech assured me that cats usually deliver without any help and she should be fine. We finally went to sleep.
The next day, Lily started leaving the nest box already and lying on the floor or on our bed away from her babies. We have been through two litters before and this is unusual. As the day went on, we started seeing puddles of diluted blood on the bedspread, much more than what I'd expect. I called the same vet again and spoke to someone else. When I described how large the puddles were, she advised us to bring her in ASAP. So we packed up Lily and her 6 beautiful babies and away we went. She was examined, x-rayed and ultrasounded. All they could clearly see was gas bubbles in her uterus, which meant she either had an infection or decomposing kittens still in there. They told us to get her spayed the very next day if we could (they don't like doing spays there since they are just an emergency vet and charge a lot more).
That night, I contacted one of my rescue acquaintances and set it up for Lily to be spayed at their vet the next day. I had to sign about 4 different waivers releasing them of liability if she died on the table (which they were so sure she was going to, because of the FIV) as well as papers agreeing to take care of the kittens if the mother didn't make it. The next day, off to the vet she went, leaving us with kitten duty. I had never bottle-fed a kitten before, and it was a learning experience. It was a crash course in kitten care. Around 3 PM, the vet's office called me to tell me that Lily made it through the surgery and was doing great - they had never called me before when I've used them for rescues, so it was a surprise to them that she made it. It turned out that there were, in fact, 2 or 3 more kittens in her that didn't make it. That means she was carrying 11-12 kittens - no wonder she was so massive!
We were warned that it would take her at least a day to recover from the surgery, and the vet said she wouldn't be able to produce milk at all. Still, we were hopefully, based on other research (specifically TNR) that she would be able to take over nursing when she was feeling better. I made arrangements with my boss to work from home half-days so I could feed the kittens around midday to hold them over until my husband got home from work to feed them again. We kept the kittens in the box with a heating pad while Lily recovered
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| Lily snuggling with a stolen kitten. Another is under her arm. |
A couple days later, my husband came home and 2 of the kittens weren't in the box. He found them in the closet with Lily; she had started stealing her kittens back. Every time we'd put them back in the box, within a few hours, 1-3 of them would be gone again. She had steel stitches so we were nervous about her having them and trying to nurse, since the kittens could get hurt, but we just couldn't keep them apart. We put the box back in the closet for her and over a few more days, she was back in the box being full-time mom. We just watched really closely; thankfully none of the kittens got hurt on the stitches.
Lily never did start producing enough milk for all of them. She produced a little bit, but just not enough. They would still suckle on her, but it was mostly just comfort at that point. We ended up bottle feeding them all the way until about 5 weeks old, something we never wanted to do since we both work full time, but we made it work and survived. All 6 kittens thrived and are healthy little terrors now. They are just about 3 months old.
The kittens already went through their first round of FIV testing. Two of them tested negative right off the bat, which is great news. The other four tested weakly positive and will be retested again next week; they will continue to be tested once a month until they either test negative, or until they are 6 months old. At 6 months, if they still test positive, then it is almost certain they have FIV.
Without further ado, meet the Planeswalkers:
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| Ajani |
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| Chandra | | |
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| Gideon | | | | | |
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| Jace | | | |
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| Nissa | |
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| Tibalt | |
So far, Gideon and Nissa have been adopted, and it was pure coincidence that they were the two who tested negative already. Gideon went to a home with another solo kitten, and the woman had an adult cat as well. Nissa went to a home with three dogs and a gorgeous adult red male tabby. I'm hoping the others get adopted soon; especially with black cats, the older they get, the harder they are to find homes for. There are already smaller and more colorful kittens to compete with at adoption events. They are all very friendly and people-social, probably because they were bottle-fed basically since birth. They are available for adoption through
Anjellicle Cats Rescue.
As for Liliana, Lily, Lilybelle - she will be staying with us for now. We love her dearly and we aren't afraid of the big bad FIV. If someone is specifically looking for an FIV cat, we will happily let her go to a new home, but we aren't going to actively seek one out for her.
