Six days old and still absolutely no progress with the 2 little baby of Sami's. Weights are stable, not gaining, not losing and the babies themselves have good vocal cords, move around all through the box, everything appears normal apart from the weights. One of Sami's babies (the one in with Tia Maria) now has his/her eyes open which is very sweet and cords are starting to fall off as well. The time really has come to sex them I guess and give them names so perhaps that will get done today or tomorrow. The weight gains of Sami's other babies are quite good, and 5 of the babies are feeding from the mum's without any difficulty at all so that is a very good sign. Sambuca has finally started eating dry kitten biscuits again. Since she gave birth, she's eaten nothing other than moist meals which I don't think is good enough for her however she's now gone back to the James Wellbeloved which is a bonus.

As stated in Tia Maria's diary entry, we've had a couple of changes in the kitten room now. Yesterday afternoon, we were feeding the 2 tinies, when Tia Maria who had been scoffing her face, started to walk back into the large kitten box where both mums and all babies had been. She had only just stepped into the box when Sambuca decided to growl at her, not a threatening, ferocious growl, just enough of a noise to let Tia know that she didn't want her there. Tia Maria is so very placid and laid back so she calmly looked at Sambuca who is too daft to realise that Tia had been helping her, picked up one of her Three Musketeers and carried him off. I'm so pleased that I had left the other small kitten box in the room and had sat it on the sofa because that's exactly where Tia took her baby to and went into the box with him. I quickly grabbed the other 2 Musketeers and put them in the box as well which made Tia very happy. After a few minutes she was settled in there with her babies and I then picked up the 2 largest babies of Sambuca's, a Black and a Siamese and put them in Tia's box as well. Tia was more than happy to have the added 2 babies and right away started to groom them and make room for them. This now meant that both mums had 5 babies each which is a big difference for Sambuca as she (as you know) has been really struggling with her 7. This situation stayed like this throughout the rest of yesterday, last night and still today. I don't mind at all because if Sambuca doesn't want Tia in the same box with her, that is not a problem at all, and Tia Maria is delighted with her 2 new additions and already thinks they are hers. This will now give Sami's babies a much better chance and hopefully larger weight gains over the next few days. Having said that, we are still struggling with our small Black and small Siamese and their weights are extremely scary at the moment. We are doing everything humanly possible for them though and I didn't actually think they would even make it this far, not with their current weights. Just to give you an indication, they are now 5 days old and are over 10 grams lower than their birth weights were! The rest of Sambuca's babies are all doing well although there is one other much smaller baby, but since removing the 2 big babies and giving them to Tia, I noticed straight away that there was much more room for the 3rd smallest to feed and he/she was no longer being pushed aside at meal times and can latch on very easily now. If only we could get the other 2 tinies latched on I'm sure it would make a massive difference.

This entry is mainly about the "big move" that occurred yesterday. When I fed our little ones at about 11:30am, I then started the move of Sami and her 7 to the Kitten Room. Remember how yesterday I said that I had the massive box in the room, all ready and waiting? Now Tia Maria who hates her babies being in the box any longer than she has to, had moved them to the sofa ages ago but it's just typical that when I carried Sami and the babies in, Tia had move her 3 INTO the massive box that was for Sambuca! This meant that I then had to quickly grab the box from our bedroom and that Sami and her lot had been in and bring it into the kitten room as I obviously just couldn't put Sambuca and the babies straight in the big box with Tia and hers as both ladies needed time to adjust to what was going on and each other. As Tia was feeding hers when I moved the others in, even though she wanted to know what was happening, she wouldn't leave her babies in the middle of a feed. Sambuca on the other hand didn't care if hers were hungry and climbed out of the box, walked into Tia's box, growled at Tia and then walked out. She eventually went back into her own box and started to feed her babies. Once both girls were settled, I came back downstairs to get some stuff down and when I next went up there I was rather surprised to see that Sambuca was now also in Tia's box but she didn't take her babies with her. So Tia and Sami and Tia's 3 babies were in the big box and Sambuca's 7 babies were in the small box with no mum at all. At this stage, I picked up our biggest Black baby who was starting to wake up a bit and placed him/her in with Sambuca to see what Tia's reaction would be. The baby went straight to Sami, crawled in under her and started to try and feed while Sami just slept. Tia had a sniff of the baby and then carried on feeding her own. The other 6 of Sami's were sound asleep so I didn't disturb them to put them in the big box as well at this stage. Once I was perfectly sure that Sami's baby was not in any harm from Tia, I came downstairs again to sort out another load of washing (our machine is still broken by the way!) and prepare the mixture to feed the 2 tinies. I went back upstairs to feed the little ones and after I fed them both, I put them in the box with their mum and sat on the floor in front of the box for ages just watching to see what the reactions would be. Everything went well, both mum's fed their own babies and were quite relaxed so I then put the remaining 4 babies in with Sami as well. Naturally, the babies all started scrabbling around Sami trying to feed and their noises (they are very loud babies in comparison to Tia's) woke up the 3 Musketeers and lo and behold Athos (who obviously has no manners) turned around to Sami's babies and hissed at them. Sami's babies didn't care and Tia didn't bat an eyelid. After about 10 minutes of Sambuca's babies fighting for nipples, one baby who got pushed out of the way sniffed Tia's paw and it occurred to that baby that perhaps there was a better milk bar on the other side of the box so he/she started to climb in under Tia's front legs and go nipple searching. Tia merely had a sniff, put her front leg around the little Black baby of Sami's and stretched out a bit more so he/she could feed from her. I am incredibly proud of Tia for accepting Sami's baby with no problems at all and I am just hoping and praying that baby sharing will continue and the pressure will be taken from Sambuca who is very exhausted and needs a break. With regards to the babies themselves, I'm still currently only feeding the 2 tinies and their weights are fluctuating at the moment and I'm still not certain that either baby is going to be okay yet. Perhaps now that mum's may share the feeding the 2 tinies will have a much better chance of getting onto a nipple. At this stage, I'm leaving the small box and bedding with the heat pad set up next to the other box in case something goes horribly wrong and I need it in a hurry but so far, God willing, the move has been successful. For those of you who are not aware, when Tia Maria and Cacao had their first litters, there was 2 weeks difference between the litters however both mums raised the 2 litters between them and it was never unusual to see Tia feeding Oriental Tortie babies while Cacao was feeding Tortie Tabby Siamese so I do know that Tia has shared before without any problems at all.

We still have 7 babies today but my little Black and my little Siamese are really struggling with the weight gains. As it stands at the moment, those 2 babies are both in the low 60gram mark whereas the other 5 all range from 70 through to 90 which obviously speaks volumes. I still do the 2 hourly feeds of our tiny babies but no longer top up any of the others as they are all doing okay on their own at the moment and I'm averaging about 3 hours sleep ever 24 hours which is starting to take it's toll I think. Today, I will be moving Sambuca and the babies into the kitten room and I made this decision based on 3 reasons. The first being that Sami is now settled with her little ones and the move should not stress her out and hopefully, Tia Maria will accept Sambuca and her babies and will help to feed them. The 2nd reason is that poor Graham is hardly getting any sleep because throughout the night, I'm up every 2 hours with the light on, traipsing up and down stairs and there is no point at all in both of us not sleeping. The 3rd reason is that Sambuca has now decided that when her little ones are asleep, she likes to sleep with me. Normally not a problem, however between the hours of 3am and 6am, I was constantly awakened by Sambuca who was sleeping on my head! Okay, this morning, I did find that very comforting and she was loving it so I did smile but I can't have this turn into a constant thing as at the moment I do need the little sleep I'm getting :) I've already set up the massive box in the Kitten Room so it will be a case of just moving the bedding and babies straight into the box. My aim is to make the move as stress free for Sami and her babies as I can.

For the first time since Sunday morning I managed to get some sleep which was really nice. I fed and weighed the babies at 3am, gave Nutri Drops to our 2 smallest babies, set my alarm for 7:30am, briefly woke up and peered into the box to see all babies (bar 2 who were asleep) were soundly latched on and suckling away so I actually went back to sleep until about 9am. Then when I woke up, there were still babies latched on and feeding away so I was really relieved. When I weighed the little ones last night, 4 of them had actually made gains, only small gains but still gains, whereas 3 had lost a little bit, not a lot so I'll be concentrating on those three throughout the day and trying to get them latched on properly. The problem is that our 2 smallest babies fight really hard for the nipples but the big ones have more strength and stamina and get in there first so I think when the little ones are sleeping, I'll be waking up the small babies and putting them on mum. One of our Black babies always makes me giggle when I feed him/her. This particularly baby is a bit of a piggy but when we feed him, he wiggles his/her ears back and forth whilst the suckling motion is going on. It's really so funny to watch the ear movement. Then onto something really gross...................up until now, the one thing that concerned me about Sambuca was that she hadn't been to the toilet properly since giving birth. We have found with all our girls that 24 hours after delivering their babies, they do the most smelliest, disgusting poo you could ever imagine, the sort of thing that must be disposed of straight away before the odour contaminates everything in the room. Anyway, Sami hadn't done this at all and I was a bit worried and wondered if this was making her uncomfortable which wouldn't have been helping the situation with her relaxing. Yesterday I gave her 3 pouches of Sheba (not all at once) in the hopes that it might encourage some bowel movement and yep, at about 2:30am Sambuca decided the time had come. Never before have I been so relieved to view such a smelly deposit :) There are no photos today sorry, but every time I've been in the bedroom, some babies have been latched on and I didn't really want to disturb them.

If this entry makes any sense at all it will be an absolute miracle! I still haven't slept and I didn't know it was possible to be this tired unless you were dead but it's been so worth it as we still have 7 babies and haven't lost any. Thanks to all out there who are praying for their survival, it's really very much appreciated. The 2-3 hourly feeds are going really well. The problem at this point in time in Sambuca as for most of yesterday, she would not feed the babies at all. She was more than happy to sit near them and groom them occasionally but that was as far as it went. Every time I fed them, I then tried to latch them on because the little ones would be scrambling all over Sambuca, trying to feed and she would keep moving away. Kim reminded me yesterday afternoon about Rescue Remedy which I had forgotten about and had in the cupboard so I gave Sami a few drops and must say that by late yesterday afternoon when I went to visit the babies inbetween feeds, she was actually allowing 2 of them to suckle from her. They are obviously the most determined of the babies because they were latched on tight. Blacks naturally :) There have been no major weight losses that have given us cause for concern thank goodness, just the standard losses that normally occur within the first 24 hours of any birth and I just pray that the little ones will gain weight from here onwards. I remember when Tia Maria had her first ever litter (also our first ever litter) and it was approximately 48 hours before she would lie down and feed the babies, up until then she didn't want to know and I remember being in tears for days and hand feeding them thinking that something was terribly wrong. Sambuca just needs time to adjust to being a mum and to recover from her ordeal and then I'm sure everything will be okay. We have made some excellent progress today though with Sami as she's now much more comfortable and lies down properly to feed her little ones and those who are sleeping and not feeding, she puts her head near and starts moving them around and grooming them. The majority of our 7 babies now all scramble over mum looking for nipples and Sambuca is much more accepting of this now so things are definitely progressing in the right direction. We do still have a little Siamese and a little Black that are causing us some concern but at the moment I don't think they are in the "danger zone" at the moment. At this stage, I can see that the hand feeding will continue for another few more days yet. My intention was to move Sami and the babies into the kitten room today but as she has now just started to become more motherly, I am not going to make any changes that might stress her out and put us back a few days. I have however changed her kitten box with a much smaller one because the TV box was just way too large and I've actually done some damage now to my right shoulder as most of my evening was spent bent over and down into the box trying to latch babies on. I kept the same bedding that was in the big box so that it still has the smells of Sami and her babies and fortunately, she took to the small box right away. I have now put the large box into the kitten room as when I move Sami into there at whatever stage, she can have her big box back and possibly share it with Tia Maria and the Musketeers. As usual, the photos are horrific and you can't tell that there are even babies in there but trust me, buried in against Sambuca (and possibly underneath her) are 7 babies. Hopefully soon, I will be able to take some photos of them without Sambuca but at the moment I am not prepared to interrupt her bonding process with them just for individual photos. At least you can see that there are 2 Siamese in there as their little white heads do stand out against the Blacks :)

As you probably know, Sambuca's due date was on April 4th however none of us were expecting that she would be giving birth just before 1am! Last night, we turned the lights out at 11:30pm and drifted off to sleep, at 1am, I was awakened by a tiny little cry. My first words were "Oh shit". I jumped out of bed, flicked the light on and looked in the box, there were 2 babies lying there still very wet with cords and afterbirths still attached, and the 3rd baby had just been born. By now, Graham had also woken up and I ran into the kitten room to grab towels, more bedding etc. etc., then went back into the bedroom, dealt with the cords and gave Graham the first 2 babies to dry off and place on the heated pad. Sambuca had done an amazing job so far and no sooner had we dried off and weighed baby number 3 when she started to push and baby number 4 appeared. Again, we dried off and weighed baby number 4 and number 5 popped out! We then had a bit of a break and were able to have a proper look at our babies and tell Sami what a great girl she'd been and Graham went and made a coffee. Not longer after he brought the coffees up, babies number 6 and 7 were born. I truly couldn't believe my eyes, I knew Sambuca was big but was not expecting 7 babies. With all 7 babies on the heat pad and wriggling around, Graham and I had hoped that was the last one but I wasn't able to feel Sambuca properly because she was busy madly cleaning herself off. Then at 2:13 I noticed that she was pushing again and baby number 8 was born at 2:14am. As I was weighing the babies I was commenting to Graham that it was the smallest litter weights we had ever had but as soon as baby number 8 came out I realised why they were much smaller. How she did it, with no assistance, and in just 1 and a half hours, I truly do not know but we are incredibly proud of her. At 3:10am, I went downstairs to prepare kitten mixture and then went into the kitten room to grab the boxes of syringes and the Nutri Drops and at 3:49am, Graham and I topped up all 8 babies, and one of our little Siamese babies didn't appear able to suckle at all. Sambuca had 3 saucers of mixture as well and I'm not surprised at all. The babies were also all given Nutri Drops and then put back in with mum (after I had totally changed the bedding). By this time, we were still missing one afterbirth (it's important to make sure there is one for each baby because a retained placenta can mean an infection inside the mum) but I wasn't overly worried at this stage because it was still quite early after the birth. At 4:30am, we both settled down to try and drift off and the last time I remembered on the clock was 5:10am. Then at 5:50am, I heard a slurping sort of sound, flew out of bed, turned on the light again to see that Sambuca had delivered the last afterbirth so again I ran into the kitten room, grabbed more spare bedding (by this time I'm actually running out of bedding) and changed all the bedding in the box again. Once Sambuca and the babies were settled, I lay back down and closed my eyes until 6:29am. A few minutes later, the alarm went off as I had set the alarm for 6:30am so as to do the next 2 hourly feed, and went downstairs to warm up some more kitten mixture. When I came back up and looked into the box, I was saddened and upset to see that at some point between 5:50am and 6:29am, one of our Siamese babies had gone on to Rainbow Bridge and I am presuming that this is the baby that wasn't able to suckle when we hand fed earlier. I went back downstairs with a heavy heart and got a little box to put baby in for burial later today and we then topped up the remaining 7 babies. I am very sad about our little one, however I have to concentrate all my energies on our 7 little ones and it's not going to be easy at all as it's a lot for Sami to feed. Fortunately, Tia Maria has only 3 babies and plenty of milk so I'm hoping that on Tuesday, I can move Sambuca and her babies into the kitten room where Tia Maria can take some of the load of Sami. All I will be doing today is quite a few loads of washing and topping up the babies every 2 hours and also trying to get them to latch on. The photos aren't particularly great and the problem is that Sami is Black and 5 of her babies are Blacks and you can't actually distinguish the Black babies much. Also, I didn't want to disturb Sambuca any longer than necessary as I want her to rest and bond with her babies.

Baby	Weight	Birth Time
Siamese	79 grams	12:45am
Oriental Black	86 grams	12:50am
Siamese	90 grams	1:00am
Siamese	75 grams (sadly didn't survive long)	1:08am
Oriental Black	65 grams	1:17am
Oriental Black	69 grams	1:44am
Oriental Black	69 grams	1:51am
Oriental Back	81 grams	2:14am