Dana's birthing

The next morning Carli called the vet, after she came home from work, and they agreed that if Dana hadn't given birth during the day, while Carli was sleeping, we should bring her in that afternoon. And since the babies still hadn't been born, Carli took Dana to the vet on Saturday afternoon. From the time that the birthing had started the day before until they arrived at the vet, Dana had seemed fine, totally unimpressed by the whole situation, hadn't seemed stressed at all, hadn't had labour that had suddenly stopped for no apparent reason or shown any other signs that there was something wrong. And the kittens were fine as was easy to feel/see in her stomach. We had given Dana supplements through the whole birth, a special mixture of egg yolk, sugar and cream and she had eaten all 5 with great pleasure, but still there were no signs of kittens. The only problem there had been was the fact that the blue boy who where born on Friday, had been born with a huge cleft palate and therefore he died during the first night.

When we arrived at the vet's office Dana was given a full examination and the vet decided to give her a calcium injection to begin with, to see if we could get her into labour again. 20 mins after she was given another injection but since there still was no progress it was decided to give her a c-section. The reason why the vet didn't want to give her an oxytoxin injection, which is the hormone that females (and humans) naturally produce to make the uterus withdraw during the birth, was that such an injection will have the same effect on the uterus as when you press all the mayonnaise out of the bottle at the same time, it will be pressed totally flat. And if there are more than one kitten, which was the case with Dana, the oxytoxin injection might cause the uterus to draw together so fast that it ruptures and the mother can die if that happens. The kittens will die for sure if the uterus ruptures. It will of course also be a very painful experience for the mother on top of everything else.

Dana had the c-section at 5 pm and 3 kittens were born, all nice, big and alive. It took some time for us to get the kittens going but it was very evident that it wasn't too late to save them all. They were cleaned and manipulated as advised by the experts and soon they were all making noises. We put them together with their sister whom we had brought with us because we didn't want her or Dana to be in any distress which they might be had we separated them. Since Dana is not a part of our breeding program we chose to have her neutered there and then. Partly because it was never out intention that she should be a part of our breeding program but also in order to minimize the costs since a c-section Saturday afternoon is really expensive (1000 Euros!).

Although Dana's former owner has told us repeatedly since we took over caring for her that we would "make a bundle" on Danas kittens, breeding cats is a HOBBY, which any normal breeder will know, and you don't make money at all, but you are rewarded so much more than money, because you "earn" a lot when you look at ALL the LOVE and AFFECTION you get from these lovely cats:-) Keeping in mind that we had to have a c-section done on Dana on top of all the other expenses we have had since she moved in there is no chance at all that we will even break even on this litter. On the other hand we are thrilled by the fact that her kittens are thriving and growing like weeds, without any interference from our side. Dana is a great mother and it might be a bit sad that she won't get the chance to have more kittens, but when you look at her and think that she's 6 years old and her latest litter only made it because she had a c-section, we feel that the decision was the right one to make. Once a female has had a c-sections, especially a female that is not so young anymore, chances are that she will need a c-section next time she's pregnant too.

After the vet had completed the operation I asked him if there were any evident reason why she had needed a c-section this time and the vet told me that there were no abnormalities or other indications why Dana couldn't give birth to the last 3 kittens on her own.