Category: Pregnancies

Posts about our girls’ pregnancies

Katie Expands

One of our Tiffanies continues to expand, whilst we still debate over whether or not the other one is pregnant.

Katie is continuing to expand, but seems quite contented.  Whenever you start to stroke her she responds with a warm purr, and seems to be enjoying looking out from the tiny windowledge in the kitten room.  We’ve decided to build a broader ledge for her, because she can fit up there at the moment, but give it another couple of weeks and there’s no way she’ll get on there!  We’ve also built a set of under-bed storage boxes today, as a way to block up the gap under the bed in the kitten room.  It’s impossible to get under the bed without one of us lifting the side, so we really don’t want to risk the girls taking their kittens into the back corner!

Dàrna seems to have finished her call (no more shouting or tail moving), but has continued with her almost constant purring and rubbing up against us both during the day and at night.  Her nipples are still about three times their original size, but appear to have lost all of their colour this morning, so I don’t know what to make of her behaviour.  She determined not to let us know whether she’s carrying or not, so it’s definitely a case of just waiting with her!

No, Really!

More wrangling over whether or not one of our Tiffanies is pregnant

Dàrna is now shouting, but has stopped moving her tail to the side.  She’s also doing a lot of purring.  If this is a call, it’s a very strange one, and isn’t following her normal pattern.  We’re taking it in turns to sleep up with the girls, or down with the others, and she’s actually keeping us awake at nights by purring in our faces, climbing on us, and trying to rub herself all over us, all of which she’s never done before.  She’s also pinked up again, with her nipples now being about three times their normal size and a medium pink (Katie’s are now about five times their normal size!).

All we can do is just be content with Katie being pregnant, and wait to see what happens with Dàrna, because I don’t have the energy for all this second-guessing!

Pregnant or Not?

Our Ocicat Classic proves just how odd she is when she calls, and one of the Tiffanies continues to develop in her pregnancy.

Kia and Amlach have started pouncing on Katie and Dàrna, so I’ve moved the girls upstairs to the kitten room. I had hoped to keep them down with the others for a while yet, but I don’t want them being upset at this stage. Katie’s abdomen is definitely starting to feel firmer, and there is no doubt now that she’s pinked up – her nipples are bright pink and about three times their normal size. I’m not sure about Dàrna at all – she’s actually behaving as if she’s calling, with lots of wriggling and rolling, and full-on tail out to the side behaviour, so it’s not look ing too good. She’s still pinked up, but I don’t think it’s as strong as it was.

Mind you, Elisabeth (Stark – Dushenka Russian Blues, Glasgow) says girls can sometimes behave like they’re calling because they’re getting a message from their hormones that they misinterpret, although this apparently doesn’t normally include tail-to-the-side stuff. Amanda (Colgan – Rushbrooke Asians, Burmese & Bengals, Cambridgeshire) says that her lot sometimes appear to be out of sync between head and body – i.e. the body is pregnant, but it takes the head a few weeks to realise that, so it goes on with normal behaviour. I’ve also read somewhere that a girl will occasionally call a short while before implantation, just to give herself the option of changing stud – if a better one comes along she will take on a pregnancy from him instead. We’re not giving up hope yet…

Kia’s calling is such a strange noise that Richard and I find it hard to continue conversations when she’s doing it – we just sort of look at eachother and laugh! I got a new phone this week, and it has a video record function (it has an audio record function too, but I didn’t find that ’till later), so I couldn’t help but record the strange sound she was making. I will try and upload it when I figure out how!

Nor’East Show and Pregnancy Update

Our Ocicats do well at show, and the Tiffanies show some more potential signs of pregnancy.

We attended the Nor’East of Scotland show today, and had a pretty good set of results, the most significant being Breckin making up to Champion (her 3rd CC), and Kia getting her qualifying Merit (4th from a different judge – actually her 6th, I think).  Jinny got her 2nd GMC (Grand Master Cat) certificate, Monty got his 2nd PC and Xaria took the Reserve Imp and another PC (her 14th?).  Call crashed and burned (3rd in a class of 3), but we expect that when we take Call out – he was only there as the ‘free’ 5th entry (Breckin was added later, after missing out on her 2nd CC at the Essex).

Kia has started calling for the first time, which might be a further indication that the older girls are pregnant – she could have been waiting for their status to change before starting.  I have honestly never heard an animal make such a strange noise: she sounds like a cross between a bull-frog and a rumbling tummy!  The other cats all keep stopping what they’re doing and running along to peer at her whenever she starts, because they can’t figure out why she sounds so odd either!

Dàrna has started climbing onto, into or under everything in the house, as if she’s looking for something.  I’m not sure if she’s searching for a nesting site, although it would be rather early for that.  She’s never been up on the wardrobes before, and doesn’t usually go under drawers etc. but she’s been both on the top of and underneath the wardrobe and the chest of drawers in my room, and in and out of every high or low space in the house!  She also appears to be suffering from ‘morning sickness’: she looks queasy from first thing in the morning until early evening, and the only meal that she’s eating properly is her tea.

First Signs of Pregnancy?

Our Tiffanies show the first signs of ‘pinking up’.

We had Lorraine and Maureen (Pontello – Pontaby Abyssinians – Cumbernauld) ’round for coffee and a chat this evening, and had some potentially exciting news. We had been attending the Cally Longhair AGM in Glenrothes this afternoon, and by coincidence, they were over visiting Heather Kelsall (also Fife – Khabasha Abyssinians) at the same time. We agreed that I would text them when we were leaving Glenrothes, and that would give them time to get finished up at Heather’s and make their way over to ours but still give us enough time to get in and sorted first.

We were sitting ’round in the living room, and Dàrna hopped up on Maureen’s lap for a cuddle. Maureen had a look at her tummy and had Lorraine look too, and they both agreed that it looked like she was already starting to pink up! They then had a look at Katie and though the same! Obviously the next couple of weeks are critical, because implantation hasn’t taken place yet, but it’s a good sign. Generally pinking up isn’t visible until 21 days, but because Dàrna and Katie are high silvers they have no colour to their undercoat, and white skin, making any sign of pink very obvious.

And Down Again…

Our Tiffanies come home again (hopefully pregnant!) and we attend the Bedford Show.

Well, that’s the girls back from stud, so now all we can do is cross our fingers and wait!  Very excited, but also rather nervous now that we have our first two potentially pregnant girls.  We stayed with Tracy and Gary on the Friday night again (what would we do without them?!), and then drove over to Amanda’s on the Saturday morning to collect Katie before the Bedford show.  Thomas Goss (one of Pippin’s owners) brought Dàrna up to meet us at the Bedford & District Cat Club show in the afternoon.  When they got to the hall, it was 22°C outside, so she couldn’t stay in the car, and Thomas was also able to arrange for her to have use of a quarantine pen for a couple of hours.  We can’t thank him enough for that!

We had a couple of cats in the show – Katie made up to Champion (her third CC) and Annas got her 4thImp, from John Hansson, no less (and beating Lolly)!  Unfortunately John withheld the PC on Monty, but at least with John you always get a good reason – he felt that Monty needed to develop more ticking (which he says is always slow on the fawns), that he has a bit of growing still to do, and that he looks ‘a bit girly’ at the moment, which is common to early-neutered boys.  Apparently that will come with time, but it is likely to be slower than an entire boy would be.

On Satuday evening, Tracy and Gary had a barbecue in their back garden, which was lovely.  We shut our lot in the livingroom, and kept the kitchen door shut as a sort of ‘air-lock’ in between the conservatory and the livingroom.  Then we sat in the garden with the conservatory doors open, which meant Tracy and Gary’s boys (Hammond and Jeremy – spot the theme?) could come and go and also get to spend some time with them and us.

The AGMs of the West of Scotland Cat Club and the Scottish Cat Club were yesterday afternoon, one after the other and in the same hall in East Kilbride.  Since this is only a few minutes off the M74, we decided last week that we would go straight to the meetings, rather than have to get home and then retrace our steps by an hour to get back there.  We had arranged to be able to move the cats inside out of the sun, but it wasn’t sunny when we got there, so we were able to leave them to sleep in the car.  The sun did come out just in the break between the meetings, but by that time the carpark had emptied enough that we were able to move the car into the shade.

We had worried a bit about how the cats might all get on, having had the girls away for a fortnight, but we needn’t have.  Katie slipped straight back into the ‘colony’ without a peep.  Dàrna was a little growly last night, but without malice, and had quietened down again by this morning.  Annas is thrilled to have ‘her babies’ back again – she’s spent the past fortnight pining for them!  There’s lots of sniffing going on as they get used to eachothers’ scents again, but touch wood everything seems fine.

A long way for a show!

Our Tiffanies go to stay with their first ‘boyfriends’, and some of the cats attend the Essex show.

Katie and Dàrna are now with their first boyfriends!  Amanda (Colgan – Rushbrooke Asians, Burmese & Bengals – Cambridgeshire) phoned us as we were driving down on Friday, to say that there was going to need to be a change of plans.  Katie was due to have been in the house with Jack, who lives inside because he’s never sprayed.

Amanda has a Bengal boy, William, who also lives in the house, but he was supposed to have mated one of her Bengal girls, and then been neutered.  Unfortunately, the girl didn’t take, so William is still entire.  Unless we wanted the risk of spotty babies, we were either going to have to forego this mating attempt (not really an option given which call Katie’s on) or use our ‘backup’ option of Katie’s half-brother, Charlie (Annas’s full brother).

This match should produce lovely, typey kittens, but would be too close for us to keep anything for breeding.  Since we weren’t intending to keep anything from Katie this time anyway, that’s not really an issue, so Charlie it is!

We met up with Amanda at her work, because that’s just off the A14, so is a lot more convenient than driving across to her house.  One of her colleagues came out to see all of the cats, so we had a good cuddle with them all in the carpark, and then Amanda took Katie away with her.  Even though Katie came from there originally, and I know Amanda will take fantastic care of her, I still felt terrible letting her go!

We then headed across to near Bedford, where we were staying with two of our friends, Tracy and Gary.  They have two black and white neutered male cats of their own, who had to move into the conservatory so our lot could have the livingroom and kitchen.  We had picked up a sheet and some comand strip hooks on our way across, so that we could stop the cats seeing eachother through the conservatory doors and potentially getting upset.  With the help of some handy clips that Gary had, we created a makeshift curtain across the doors, leaving their poor boys shut on the other side!  Their house rabbit, Chloe, had to be moved from the livingroom into Tracy and Gary’s bedroom, because Monty had his face pressed up to the side of her cage and was shouting in at her – very funny, but probably not particuarly nice for her!

Dàrna wasn’t at all phased by the change of scenery, and after a quick check around her new territory, was straight up onto the couch for a cuddle with Tracy and Gary.  Breckin hid under the vetbed in one of the baskets, only coming out for a quick meal.  Once Chloe was removed, Monty slunk around the place investigating every corner, but rushing behind the couch if we moved at all.  Annas was hilarious, because she walked around growling continuously, and then settled herself in Chloe’s play tunnel, growling at anyone who even considered entering!

We drove down for the Essex Cat Club show on Saturday morning, where we won the prize for the further-travelled exhibitors (442 miles to get home, according to the SatNav).  It was worth coming, though – Dàrna made up to Champion (her fourth CC/Challenge Certificate, but only her third from different judges), and Monty won his first PC (Premier Certificate).  Breckin’s breeder, Rita Leggett (Yesso Ocicats – Norfolk), was there with one of her girls, Dotty, who beat Breckin for the CC (Dotty was looking much more mature and had better spotting on the day).

Annas didn’t place in the Imperial Class (gutted, because she was looking stunning), but had a red card day apart from that, taking first in some big classes.  The Imperial was actually won by the lovely Russian girl, Lolly (Troika Aurora), who is owned by our friend Judith Noble (Larksong Russian Blues & Selkirk Rex – Bedfordshire), and is the new ‘Sheba‘ cat.  We last encountered Lolly at The Supreme, where Ann Bond-Wonneberger debated for ages between her and Xaria for the Grand, but eventually gave it to Lolly!

Dàrna is in with a stud called Pippin, whose owners are Steve Crow and Thomas Goss (Kagura Asians & Burmese).  They were good enough to come along to the show and collect Dàrna from there, saving us the journey to their house afterwards. This meant we could just head straight back to Tracy and Garys.  Just as well, really, since I had agreed to collect the results for Cat Planet, and had all of those to type up in the car whilst Richard drove back.

Today we had a fairly leisurely start, leaving about 9am.  We had arranged to collect a stud cat for Helen MacLeay (Kruzinkal British Shorthairs, Kilmarnock).  The stud’s breeder lives not far from Birmingham, so we met her in a services on the M6, and then met Helen just off the M74 this afternoon.  Thankfully we had a good run North, so we weren’t too late back (although spending an hour or so chatting with Helen in the carpark made us a bit later than we might have been!).  Annas has been wandering around shouting for the girls ever since!