I had been suspecting for awhile that Ever was pregnant. When I picked her up, I felt her nipples which I never had before (at first I thought just had a bunch of burrs stuck in her fur but eventually realized what it was), and she just started staying inside and sleeping all the time. Like ALL the time. But then a little over a week ago, my parents were over and we were petting Ever. I laid my hand on her belly and felt movement!
My mom felt it too, and then I even captured it on video. So from then on, we at least were SURE and I was able to start doing some research. Things I read said that if you can feel or see movement, they they are probably in the last 2 weeks of pregnancy. I was worried she would deliver while we were gone on vacation, so every day whenever we would leave the house and come back, we'd always check for kittens.
We made Ever a box with a cat bed and towels and I started putting her in there frequently so she would know it was there. I would also feel her tummy a LOT to make sure I could still feel them in there. She would tolerate it sometimes. Other times she would make me stop.
The morning of July 5th, I noticed just how clingy she was being. When I was eating breakfast, she laid down on the table and slept right next to me. When I sat down on the couch to work, she cuddled up on my legs, and then decided that wasn't good enough and she crawled up onto my chest and laid down. Which NEVER happens. She cuddles with Sutton, but usually not me.
That evening, I asked Sutton before he went to bed "If Ever goes into labor during the night, do you want me to wake you up?" He said YES! As I got ready for bed that night, she was following me everywhere so I picked her up and took her up to bed with me, which I don't often do. She immediately started purring and would not stop. I turned out the lights about 1am. Adam came to bed about 1:30 and she moved from sleeping on my legs, to sleeping on his. Still purring.
At 3:06am, Adam heard a little squeaking that woke him up. All I heard was still the purring. Adam turned the flashlight on his phone on, and pointed it at Ever, who was on his legs. He couldn't quite see, so he got up and got a closer look. THERE WAS A BABY KITTEN!
Yep, Ever had given birth ON Adam's legs (there was a quilt between) without us even noticing. How does that even happen? And the kitten was relatively dry, which makes me think she had been out for awhile. Ever was just laying there like nothing, letting the kitten crawl around her looking for food. She didn't seem to be making it easy for the kitten to nurse, but she also wasn't leaving it.
We freaked out. A kitten was just born on our bed in the middle of the night without us noticing! As soon as we calmed down, I tried to feel Ever's belly. She didn't act like she was in labor anymore, but I also was weirded out that she would only have 1 kitten. I googled it and it said it can happen but it's very rare. So I finally was able to feel on her belly that there was at least one more. I could feel movement and a head.
I was so excited that I wasn't going to be sleeping, but Adam wanted to. So he went downstairs to sleep on the couch and put the baby gate up at the base of the stairs so that Riddick couldn't come up and mess with the kitten. Ever laid there for a minute after he left, then grabbed the kitten (which looked like she was trying to eat its head) and jumped off the bed. I ran after her yelling, but she just flew down the stairs and jumped the baby gate, all with the kitten in her mouth. I'm not sure if she was following Adam or trying to get to the box we'd made her.
So now we were down in the living room and she set the baby down outside the box, then jumped in the box and just looked at her baby. So I got a paper towel (cause I didn't know if I was supposed to touch it or not) and moved the baby into the box with her. She laid down and the kitten proceeded to try to nurse. Adam moved back upstairs to bed (to my side where there was no kitten birth mess haha), and I laid down on the couch.
After awhile, Ever started making noises and looking to me as if she needed something. I had no idea what she needed so I got her some food and water. She ate and drank a bunch. Then I laid back down. Suddenly, she was on the ottoman that was right next to the couch, meowing. I realized that she was leaking some sort of fluid from her bottom and then cleaning it all up after herself. She was also licking her bottom a ton, which I'd read is what they do during labor. So this all made me think that the next kitten was coming. She laid down on the ottoman and I felt her belly. I could feel her contractions and noticed she'd started pushing. Her back legs seemed almost paralyzed but the back half of her body would tense when she pushed, almost like she was pushing off with her legs but also trying not to use them. It was weird. She would do like 2 pushes, then stop for awhile. She moved back to her box to be with her baby, but it seemed like she wanted me near so I went and sat with her.
Ever was exhausted, so she would fall asleep between contractions, while the baby nursed. Then every few minutes, she would do the weird pushing, then go back to sleep. This went on for awhile, so I went back to the couch and laid down. I think I maybe dozed off for a bit, but then I heard a squeak and a bunch of licking.
I went over to the box and Ever was almost sitting folded in half, licking this dark black glob that was laying on her butt/tail area. I was grossed out, wondering if she'd just delivered the placenta or something, but then I realized that part of the glob was moving up and down like it was breathing, so I searched for a face and found one! It was a tiny black kitten, completely soaked because it had JUST come out. Ever was licking it a ton. And she kept licking it forever. I read that they have to lick off the nose and mouth so the babies can breathe. Kitty #2 was born around 5:45am, probably 3 hours after kitty #1!
I felt her belly again after she was done licking, and I didn't feel anymore movement. I thought she was probably only having these 2, but I wasn't sure. Since I'd told Sutton I would wake him up, I went into his room around 6 or a little after and told him we had kittens! He was so excited! He got right up without waking Ren and came out to see the 2 babies. We petted Ever and told her she was a good momma and looked at the babies for awhile. Then he said he wanted to go back to bed.
He went back in his room and shut the door. A few minutes later, I heard him talking to Ren. He had been too excited to go back to sleep and had woken Ren to tell him the good news! So I opened the door and had them both come out. We sat and watched Ever and her babies for awhile and Ren kept saying "It's a miracle! It's a miracle!"
Too bad our towel was black, you can hardly see the black one, but she's there:
Ever has really taken to being a mommy, which we were worried she wouldn't! She spends almost all her time in the box, but takes breaks to come out and lay on the cool kitchen floor sometimes. She lets the kittens crawl all over her, and tries to make her nipples more easily accessible to them by rolling on her back. We've caught her completely curled around them with her paws over them, all sleeping. She also constantly purrs when they're nursing, I'm assuming that's so the babies hear her since they can't see her. If she hears them cry, she immediately runs to them. If she sees that we're holding one, she grabs it away from us and takes it to the box. So we've decided not to hold them much for the next few days.
Yesterday afternoon, we decided on names for the kittens. We had always said that when she had her babies, we would probably keep 2. Well, she only had 2 so it worked out that we didn't have to choose which ones to keep! I have discovered that they are both girls. We decided on Luna for the black kitty. Luna = moon = night sky = black. Maple came about because when we were talking about names for the black kitty, we said Black Widow (from Avengers), that morphed into Willow (cause willow kinda sounds like widow), then that morphed into Maple (because we have a book about 2 sisters named Willow and Maple). We decided Maple would be perfect for the lighter kitty. Ren's name suggestions were Lungsie and Firekitten (since they were born near 4th of July I guess?). So we have decided that their middle names can both be Firekitten.
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UPDATE! I had to update this with a couple of the "newborn" photos I did of them. I couldn't resist! These first ones were taken when they were about 3 days old. Eyes still closed and they were NOT sleeping, it was hard to get them facing the right way + in focus + posed!
And then I did another set when they were almost a month old. Maple (left) loved being swaddled after she got used to it, and started to fall asleep! Luna hated it and struggled against it the whole time, so I tried to be quick. You can see that she got her paws out during her individual photos.
