Gatsby on April 17th, 2012
A pregnant kitty someone threw over a tall wire fence
As loveable a cat that anyone could want to love

by Jennifer Kiley

i spent the last two hours helping Gatsby give birth to three adorable kittens. but before i get into telling you all about it i must say this is the 2nd day in a row that i’ve written a long piece and have the page freeze up on me and totally lose everything. on April 20th when i wrote Happy 420!!! it disappeared 3 times. so i rewrote it 3 times. Each time it did improve-so at least i could be appreciative of that. on April 21st I was writing about how people have a fear of the police and i felt that was a grand piece of writing. the bloody thing froze just as i was coming to the close of writing it. and mind you i did try to copy each of these writings but when i went to paste them someplace else it didn’t work. am i being jinxed or just being forced into editing and editing my work. maybe a message is there from my muse to teach me all about that long road one has to follow if one is going to write. it’s the world of editing and rewrites. plus i see that when i rewrite from memory the second or third time around actually comes out better and fuller. and to finish this part, the same thing happened when i tried to write this story, so once again i had to start from the beginning. (what exactly do you really think that this writing and having my work disappear is all about – could it be that i am working on a screenplay where one of the characters has been pulled into the paranormal universe and is protesting the chnage in plans for her character. i do not know but i wish it would stop. it is getting really exhausting and frustrating to keep starting from the beginning over and over again.)

now that i’ve said this let me tell you about our three new kittens. first of all that is how many i predicted Gatsby was going to give us. The first birth was so painful. I didn’t know it was happening until while i was writing on facebook on my laptop I heard a bloody scream coming from Gatsby out of the other room. I asked Shawn (my partner) “What the hell was that?” she told me: “It had started.” Well, as quickly as i could i put my laptop into hibernation i went to be with Gatsby and Shawn. We were on either side of her as she lay uncomfortably on a sheet on the bed. The first birth was long and painful but finally after laying my hands on Gatsby and Shawn doing the same. I threw in some lamaze breathing. the first kitten started to slowly appear but it took what seemed like forever. We just wanted Gatsby’s pain to stop. And then there appeared in the last moments of his (?) birth, the first kitty, an orange tabby long hair (possibly) (this was apparent to us after momma cleaned him (?) all up. Watching him just move and breath for the first time was truly breathtaking. All throughout, each birth was a miracle and kind of scary because i know i kept on chasng away the worst in my head. when i heard their sweet squeaky voices i was delighted. But on to a happier state, we have temporary names for all of them. The first we are calling Max (Maximillian). Now for the second birth, Max was all cleaned when who should pop out much more quickly and with only the minimum of discomfort on Gatsby’s part a gorgeous totally black probably long haired darling kitten that we named Twain (M. Twain). He is the biggest and I think the most precocious. I want him to hopefully become my familiar. I haven’t had my own black cat as a familiar since Jones (Indigo). She was crazy and lovable and my lap cat and sleeping buddy. Always wanted to be with me. Then came the last of the three. I predicted there would be three in the litter. The date I chose was way off the mark (May 4th I believe). This little one was the smallest and was also an orange tabby. No one had any white on them that either of us could see. We named her (?) Scout. Personally, I think the names will stick. I chose them except that originally I wanted to give Max the name Marcus (for the writer and philosopher) but Shawn wasn’t so sure about that one. It actually started out with the Mark Twain theme but we just kept Twain. And of course Scout is from “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I relate to that character and felt a lot like her when I was a kid except i didn’t have her father instead I lived in my Imagination but Scout the kitten needs a strong name to start out her life.

All are asleep now except me and Sagan, one of our two chinchillas, who i also refer to as Buddha Baby. She looks like the Buddha when she sits in her meditation pose. Well, I need to do some editing before I go to sleep myself. Once again I am not going to get to watch the movie I have been trying to see all week. Maybe tomorrow in the late night. In answer to the question, when we brought Gatsby into our home, after rescuing her from a friend who rescued her from her yard after someone threw her pregnant and all over her extremely high fence, did we know she was pregnant? No, but it will be alright. We are going to give these kittens the best socializing any kittens could ask for. Not since Mouse and Stuart have we had such young ones in our care. They were both about 4 weeks when the Animal Shelter asked me if I would take them home to give them personal care. Stuart was the first. He was bottle fed and slept between Shawn and I. He developed a cold and Shawn would hold him while they both slept to help him breath better. And Mouse received the same kind of care. Mouse had this special ski hat that he liked to knead and suck on. He did that for years. And Stuart drank from the bottle long after he was an adult cat. He liked being held like a baby and able to suck at the bottle. These two became my draping kitties. They were always in my lap and when I would try to use my computer esp. my laptop they would drape over my arms while I typed, both at the same time. I loved them and I loved how much they loved me. Now that they are gone, having new baby kittens in the house will make missing all our dear sweet loved animals a little less painful. I know Shawn is not going to let us keep all of them but I can only hope. Let’s see how attached we both get to them. Once you love an animal from birth it is next to impossible to let them go. ps. photos will be placed on wordpress eventually of the newborns with their mum but only the ones that are not invasive of Gatsby’s privacy rights. She is such a loving kitty and practically a kitten herself. When Shawn surprised me with Gatsby I thought she was only about 4 1/2 months old at the time approximately a month ago. The vet when announcing she was pregnant, also stated she was about a year old. Such a tiny little girl Gatsby is.

And the morning after the birthing of the kittens with mom and babies all alert and adorable.

The link to the continuing story of Gatsby and her three adorable kittens. Beware the postpartum tyrant. Our poor other kitties just don’t know or have any idea why she is so bloody hell mad at them. Hopefully, the emotional terrorism will subside in due time.