run free little one

This is the most painful post we’ve shared so far and one its been almost too painful to bring ourselves to write.

Lovely Chi came to us at the beginning of February with her growing up daughter, Changi. We were lucky to very quickly have the offer of a great new home for the pair of them, once they’d been spayed, chipped and vaccinated. Their new family stuck with them when we realised that Chi was pregnant. Changi went off to live with them, and the plan was for Chi to have her kits here and then go to start her new life with Changi and her new humans once she’d brought her kittens up. It seemed a brilliant arrangement. The new family would get to watch the tiny ones grow up, the little ones would grow up being used to having visits from small children, and at the end of the day Chi would be free to start her new life with them. We were delighted that she would finally have a stable loving home, albeit a little later than we’d hoped.

The pregnancy progressed and Chi and I spent hours snuggled together, my hand on her tummy feeling the little ones wriggling around. We talked endlessly about when she would have them, where would be the best nesting place, what we might call them, and got excited together about who they would be. Then last Thursday I got home, thankfully earlier than expected, to find Chi had had a couple of babies. She seemed to think she’d finished, and was purring away, tucking into her supper and wanting a cuddle. Sadly it was evident that she was wrong and there was a problem. After a few frantic phone calls, we had what I think ranks as our most nightmare drive with cats so far. Off to the vets in the rush hour traffic, with a frantic cat half way through labour and two tiny tiny kittens being trampled in the carrier.

a brief moment for mum and two kits before the world fell apart

There was a long wait whilst Chi had an emergency section. Another kit was stillborn and then two more born alive … just. Hours later, Chi was struggling to come round from her op. She and her kits went home for the night with the vet nurse so that they could be monitored and cared for. Although she seemed to be coming round, Chi collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, and died, leaving 4 newborn kittens without a mummy.

motherless kits – newborn

Chi was such a beautiful cat. Pretty on the outside, but beautiful inside too – a lovely loving girl. She had a rough start in life, having had her first litter of kits when she was only about 7 months old. It seemed that her luck was finally about to change and she had a wonderful life ahead of her. It was not to be. It’s hard to express how this feels. You’d need to meet her to know what a lovely cat she was, and to see her kittens floundering around without a mummy to understand the emptiness she leaves behind. One of the things that feels most unbearable to me is that this was entirely preventable. Had she been spayed when she should have been, none of this would have had to happen. She’d still be here to enjoy her new life and the desperate poor kits would never have been here to experience this abandonment.