Blooming Amaryllis!

On Sunday, March 6th, Amaryllis' kittens were born. The day before, Amaryllis was investigating the dens in her room. She really liked the least appropriate one - the cave at the bottom of the cat tower. It's incredibly small and it's not washable. I put a towel down in there and she kicked it out. Dang. Saturday evening, Amaryllis was on high alert, hissing and growling at any noise she heard. She also curled up on my lap, something she hadn't done before, and sat there for hours. She's a sweet, affectionate girl; she just hadn't sat on my lap before. I could see the alien babies moving around inside her. I knew it wouldn't be too much longer before she had the babies. I finally left her at midnight. As I left, I told her, "I'm only a howl away."

Sunday morning, as I was preparing breakfast for the resident cats, Amaryllis started howling. I ran downstairs. She was waiting for me at the door. I believe her expression said, "You said you were *A* howl away. I've been howling for five minutes! Where were you?" There were little droplets all over the carpet. I knew kittens would be coming soon. I sat down; Amaryllis went into the cat tower cave. Dang. I called to her and she ran over to me. I showed her the cardboard box den I made her. She went inside and curled up. Twenty minutes later, contractions started and a kitten was born at 9:05am.

She had her back to me so I did not get to see the birth and didn't really realize one had actually been born until I heard soft mewing. Finally, she moved and the little kitten started crawling up her side. I got my first glimpse of the white kitten.

At 9:55am, the first brown tabby was born. Amaryllis had turned around so I got to watch this one being born. The second white kitten was born at 10:20am. And the final kitten was born at 10:37am. I missed that one completely because I had to step out of the room to make a phone call.
Amaryllis has certainly done this before (given birth) as she had them all cleaned up incredibly quickly. She purred the entire time she gave birth. After they were all born, she looked up at me with the greatest expression that really summed up how she was feeling. Even though it wasn't even 11am, her day had been long and she needed a nap. She looked quite tired.

I find it quite funny that she gave birth in alternating colors. The kittens lined up to nurse in birth order.

The kittens are fairly easy to tell apart. The fur on the two white ones is different. One is fluffy; the other is sleek. One of the white kittens is developing stripes and will probably look like Amaryllis in a couple of months. The brown tabbies are a little hard to tell apart but one's coloring is lightening up and there's more white on the face of one.

Amaryllis has been sneezing since the day before kittens. I had our vet make a house call to check her out. The vet thinks it's just allergies. I'm keeping an eye on her because I certainly don't need her to come down with a little kitty cold.

I think the biggest kitten, one of the brown tabbies, is a girl. The others may be boys. I need to look again when they're a bit older. They're all gaining weight and looking good. She's doing a wonderful job with them. She lets me pick them up to weigh them. I'm careful not to handle them too much.

Amaryllis definitely likes it when I come into the room to be with her. She finally has an excuse to leave her kittens for a few minutes. I call this our adult time.

Amaryllis makes being a mother look easy. When one of her kittens turtled onto its back and couldn't roll over, it squawked. She casually reached her paw out, flipped the kitten over onto its tummy, and drew it close to her all in one smooth move. She's a good momma.

Flower Power

Introducing the newest foster - Amaryllis! She's a beautiful Lynx Point Siamese. Although it may just be the hormones kicking in, she's incredibly sweet and friendly. Loves to be petted. Constantly kneading. Does NOT like to be left alone. Here's hoping that she does not pull a Nadya and force me to stay with her the entire time she's giving birth (Nadya freaked out any time I made a motion to leave; I was stuck in her room for 15 hours). Of course, I want to be with her when she gives birth but I would like to occasionally leave to go to the bathroom.

Without trying to compare her too much to Nadya, she's already making me reflect on Nadya. Amaryllis loves to chew up boxes. That was Nadya's favorite pastime (her adopter sent me a picture recently of Nadya in a cardboard box). As soon as Amaryllis walked around her new foster room, she went right up to the red catnip heart and claimed it as hers. Nadya loved that heart. I sent her home with a fresh, new version of it.

Without doing an ultrasound, it's impossible to really tell when she'll give birth. Perhaps in the next week or so. Another caregiver said she saw the babies moving, which is a sign that she's just a few days (or shorter) away from giving birth. I didn't see that at all last night as I spent time with her.

I predict there will be five with at least one Siamese and one brown tabby (we caregivers think that there is a Brown Tabby Fairy out there planting a brown tabby into each litter because it always seems to be one in every litter). I'm hoping to get a solid white one. I always look forward to seeing what colors you get. After 120 fosters, Amaryllis is my first blue eyed foster. It's the little things that thrill me.

I plan on naming her kittens after flowers (although I will be skipping "Rose" and "Lily" as we have a ton of those in our database). I have a few in mind. We'll see what she gives birth to before I name them.