Schimmel Siamese & Oriental Cats are Oriental cat breeders based in Oxford, UK. We sometimes have Oriental and Siamese kittens for sale. We also have 2 Oriental Stud Cats and online kitten diaries.

Kitten Diaries

Amaretto

July 2005

Birth

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

Amaretto's 3rd Kitten Diary - July 2005 to October 2005

We are now 1 week old!

Day 6 - July 31, 2005

All of the Chocolate Bars now have their eyes fully open and unlike their sweet mother, they have incredibly loud voices. I am amazed that already they are crawling about and yesterday afternoon I caught 2 of the Siamese trying to climb out of the box. I do have a horrible feeling that we cut the hole way too low down and could end up with a problem in the not to distant future. They are all really well behaved though when it comes to weighing time, unlike Tia's babies. None of the Chocolate Bars wriggle around or try to climb out of the container that sits on top of the scales. I know it doesn't look like it in the photos but there are 9 babies in there, all on top of each other, all are absolutely fuming because the photos were taken straight after the FSW time (FSW means feeding, supplementing and weighing) Basically, the babies are all weighed and supplemented at exactly the same time each day and the process goes like this. First I have to distinguish which are Retto's babies and which are Tia's, I take out baby number 1 of Retto's, pop him/her on the scales, note the weight, supplement the baby with Nutridrops and then feed the baby. Then that baby goes into a cat bed while I do the 2nd baby of Retto's and the process is repeated right the way down the line for all 9 babies. In the end, I have 9 babies in the small cat bed screaming blue murder because mummy isn't there to save them from the horrible human. While all this is going on, Amaretto is put in our bedroom with a plate of Hills a/d because as soon as any of the babies in the cat bed cry, she runs over, picks them up and puts them back in the box and obviously this means the babies get mixed up. I then change the bedding in the box and put all 9 babies back in there. Now, does anyone reading this diary want to hazard a guess at how long this procedure takes me in total?

Day 5 - July 30, 2005

Our Chocolate Bars have changed quite a bit in the past few days and at just 5 days of age, already eyes are open, some are fully open, others are starting to open up. They are also now becoming very aware of their surroundings. This was proven to me yesterday when I went in for one of the 2 hourly feeds as the babies were not feeding when I went in and were all sleeping or semi sleeping in the box. I put my hand in the box and Twix started hissing at me. Despite the fact that most of my waking hours are spent in the kitten room, he obviously did not recognise this strange hand in the box. I can confirm that we have definite Seal Points amongst the Chocolate Bars as very dark seal colouring now outlines the ears and is very prominent. I think there is a definite Blue Point in there as well. Crunchie is still the biggest Siamese in this litter and Twix is slightly bigger than Crunchie. I think though that if there were still just the 4 babies in with Amaretto they would probably be double the size that they are now however there is an awful lot more competition for the milk bar with 9 of them. At the moment, the photos are the same in each entry because when the babies are sleeping, I can't disturb them because that is when Amaretto is getting a break and if I move them to take photos, they will wake up and automatically think it's feeding time. I would like to get photos of each litter individually but right now that is way down on my list of priorities.

Day 4 - July 29, 2005

This is the hardest diary entry I have ever written and how I can even put the events of the past few days into words I do not know. It has now been just over 24 hours since my beautiful Tia Maria left me here alone with nothing. I say with nothing because even though I have Tia Lusso and even though I have Tia Maria's babies, I would give back every single one of them if I could have my girl back. I do not know how I am going to get on without her. I am feeling numb, I am feeling empty, I'm angry, I'm in shock, but mainly, I feel like my heart has been ripped apart and part of me went when my Tia did. I am never going to get over this, I am just going to learn to live with the agony that I have been going through since she left me. Tia Maria, as you know was taken to the vets on the afternoon of the 27th, she was given a shot of Oxytocin, she was fine and I brought her back home. I sat with her most of that afternoon, came downstairs only for a quick dinner, I went back upstairs and my baby girl was struggling. I put her on our bed, and stroked her and tried to make her "more with it" while Graham grabbed his shoes and I phoned the emergency vets who did not answer but we drove anyway regardless and kept trying to phone them on the way there. They finally answered the phone and we told them we were coming straight in. However, about 10 minutes away from their surgery, my baby girl died in my arms. Graham was at a loss as to what do say to me as I sat there with Tia in my arms, begging her to wake up, lifting her head and begging her not to leave me. We came back home, I took her upstairs and sat with her kissing and holding her and when it came time to put her in the carrier I could have just died along with her. Graham took her to the vets for me the next day when she was given a post mortem to find out cause of death. Her cause of death (and this is in layman's terms) was basically 2 dead, decomposing kittens which were still inside her and when she went into labour this released toxins from the dead babies which caused a fatal infection and that is why my girl is no longer with me. There was nothing at all that could have been done to save her, even if we had made it to the vets in time, it would have made no difference at all.

In a couple of weeks' time, my girl's ashes will be returned to me and I will not be scattering them anywhere, they will remain by my side because Tia Maria was happy only if she was with me, she would not ever go to anyone else, nor could Graham or our daughter pick her up. All of her life, she only wanted me and that was how life was for Tia and I.

My vet, Andy, could not be faulted throughout my loss of Tia Maria and we will always be grateful his sympathy, honesty and respect that he showed to my girl.

I could not ever have made it through these last couple of days without Graham and our daughter's support, the support of my friends, and the countless emails I have from people offering their sympathy and love, people that I have not ever heard of and did not know existed until this point in time. I still have not answered any of these emails as I have not been able to deal with it but when I am able to, I will reply personally to each and every single one of them. Graham has given me the most beautiful tribute to my girl that you can see on our web site. He wrote it, not I, because the pain is too great and I can not do it.

Thank you to those very close friends who were there for me the night my girl went, thank you for your support, your stunned disbelief, and your comforting words. Thank you to every single person who emailed me, even now, I am still receiving emails. Thank you to my friends on the message board for their beautiful words. Thank you to my family who are now helping me to pick up the pieces, thank you for helping me to raise my Tia's babies, for helping me to feed them every 2 hours, and for being there with comfort and love when I break down in tears yet again.

Tia Maria's 5 babies were moved in with Amaretto and her 4 babies, later that evening on the 27th because they needed a mum. We have been hand feeding all 9 babies every 2 hours since Tia Maria left me because 9 are too much of a strain on our darling Amaretto. She took Tia's babies straight away, with no hesitation, not even for a split second. She cuddled them and groomed them and fed them. I have had some offers of foster mum's from my very good friends for which I am very grateful. I can not accept these offers because Tia Maria trusted me implicitly with her little ones and she would be horrified to know that a stranger was raising them. She left them in my care and this is where they will remain.

I can not believe she has gone and left me like this to go on without her and even now, as I write this, the pain is just increasing every single moment of the day. Tia and I relied on each other for so much and now, she is gone, I don't have her to hold and talk to, she is somewhere else now without me.

My apologies for a very late entry with no photos in it. Yesterday afternoon, Tia Maria went into labour, however, things were not as well as they could have been afterwards with Tia. I have only just now come back from my vets with her and all of today was spent sitting in the room with Tia and her babies. Obviously though, I kept popping into the kitten room constantly to check on our little Chocolate Bars who are doing just beautifully. They are all putting on weight, making great gains in fact, and are thriving. Neither they, nor Amaretto needs my help at all which, to be honest, is such a relief as it's been a very rough few months in the Schimmel household. Tomorrow, I will be taking photos as per normal. Amaretto is looking really good as well and we are giving her meals of Hills a/d as our biggest fear with her is that she will lose too much weight as she is a small girl. She is positively blooming though, extremely smug looking and rather proud of her gorgeous babies.

Day 1- July 26, 2005

I will start this entry off by saying that our babies now have names. We have:

Twix	Oriental Black
Buttons	Siamese
Crunchie	Siamese
Whispa	Siamese

They will be collectively known as our Chocolate Bars. Yes, I know Chocolate is an odd theme for an Ori Black and what will probably be Seal Point Siamese, however, that's what we wanted so that is what we have done :) Yesterday afternoon as the Chocolate Bars were all doing very well, they were moved straight into the kitten room and Tia Maria was then moved into our room in the hopes that it will encourage her to think about going into labour. I'm pleased to say that Amaretto has now eaten 2 big meals of wet food thank goodness because she ate nothing from the moment labour started until last night. She's looking really good though and already is so very proud of her beautiful babies and spends all her time grooming them, counting them and cuddling them. I must admit that I have also totally fallen under their spell and am already in love with the babies.

Birth - July 25, 2005

This has been a very long night with no sleep at all for either Amaretto or myself. At around 9pm last night, Amaretto was sitting on my lap when my leg suddenly felt rather wet. Sure enough, Amaretto was discharging, all over me. At this point in time we thought it would be an idea to put the kitten box on the bed, put her in it while I went and gathered the odd bit of birthing equipment. We put her in the box and then for the next 3 hours, she was in the box, out of the box, in the litter tray, out of the litter tray, under the bed, on the bed, in the clothes shelves, you name it, she did not stand still and obviously was not impressed at our choice of kitten box for her. By midnight she was fast asleep in her box, as relaxed as anything almost as if she had decided that she didn't want to have these babies after all. At about 12:30 I put the box back on the floor, and watched some Only Fools And Horses (an absolute must during the birth waiting period). At 1:35am, she was out of the box and lying on the rug in front of the bed so I turned the light on and went over to her and sure enough, there was the tip of a black tail which I wasn't overly happy about because this meant a breech birth. Amaretto has had breech births in the past, but she did appear to be struggling this time. At 1:40am, the entire tail was out but that was as much as Amaretto could do, despite constantly contractions, this baby did not want to leave mum so at this point in time I grabbed the Vaseline. Unfortunately, as I was doing that, Amaretto went under the bed and was having contractions again under there so I had to lie under the bed with her, in semi darkness and as she was pushing, I was very gently pulling. At 1:56am our first baby was born, an Oriental Black. This delivery really took it's toll on Amaretto and I felt so desperately sorry for her but she was so brave and she did it in the end. I then put her back in the box while I weighed our Black, and dried him (?) off and oh boy does this baby have a set of vocal cords on him. Once he was dried off, I placed him on the heat pad and then at 2:22am it started again but this time, the birth was not a breech and much easier for Amaretto to deal with. So at 2:31am our 1st Siamese baby had now been born. After 2 hours rest, the 3rd was born (again a normal birth), and then just over an hour later the 4th was born. The problem now was that while Amaretto had delivered these 3 easier than the first baby, she was struggling with delivering the afterbirths. For the first time ever, she did not do a single cord herself, nor did she do sacs for the first 2, that was left up to me. The whole procedure really took it's toll on our girl and we are so relieved that there are just 4 babies because she worked darn hard all night and those 4 were more than enough. By 7am I was helping her deliver the last afterbirth. Since then, she has done nothing but sleep, cuddling her 4 little ones, who were all latched on and feeding (and fighting each other for the best nipple) by 7:30am. I am also incredibly shattered so I can only imagine how much more exhausted Amaretto is feeling. We are keeping a really close eye on her as I will be happier when she eats something but despite being tempted with everything under the sun, she just wants to sleep. At this stage so do I, however, Tia Maria is due today and I am just hoping she will go into labour during the day as it will make it just that little bit easier for us all.

Baby	Birth Time	Weight	Sex
Oriental (Breech birth)	0156	108 grams	M ?
Siamese	0222	90 grams	M ?
Siamese	0441	100 grams	?
Siamese	0558	100 grams	?

Birth Photos

Click Here to read Amaretto's Pregnancy Diary.