We are 1 week old now!

Day 6 - January 27, 2007

I would like to begin today's diary entry by congratulating Caryll and Gr Pr Schimmel Chilli Tequila on outstanding show results today at the Southern Counties Cat Club Show.

At some point during the night, Tia Lusso moved the Racers out of their "stables". I got up this morning, came downstairs and put some a/d and Natures Menu on a plate, took it back upstairs to the kitten room, only to discover that our 6 Racers were all on the carpet in a corner under the work surface. I do not know what possessed Lucy to move her children out of the box but I am wondering if the heating had something to do with it. When the heating was fixed yesterday I moved the box to in front of the radiator and opened the top window in the kitten room. It's possible that Lucy felt it was too hot in the box next to the radiator. For the time being, what I have done is put bedding on the floor in the same place that Lucy put her her children, I put the Racers on the bedding, and Lucy seemed reasonably content. Whether or not they will stay there is anyone's guess. The house move didn't upset the Racers' weights which I'm relieved about because sometimes if the mum's are restless and continue to move the babies around, it can mean that the babies remain unsettled and don't feed as they should. Fortunately though, all 6 Racers had gained again during today's weigh in. Shergar is going to be quite a large boy and is well ahead of the others in the weight department already.

Day 5 - January 26, 2007

Before beginning today's entry, I would first like to congratulate Julia of Honeybourne Siamese and Narnia on their first litter. I was delighted to hear the news this morning and will be praying that the new babies will continue to thrive and do very well. Today's good news is that the boiler has finally been sorted out and we have our heating back thank goodness! Our babies, who now have names, are doing extremely well. I'm happy with their weights and all 6 seem to be progressing at the moment. Tia Lusso is currently on 1 tin of a/d per day which I am hoping is enough. She is also getting between 4-5 of pouches of Hi Life and Natures Menu kitten food throughout the day as well as the small tins of the more "delicacy" type foods as a treat, such as Hi Life Petit Pate or the Imperial tins. I am thinking she has also been nibbling at her kitten biscuits because I do find a few of them scattered on the floor next to the feeder (Lucy is a very messy eater). So many changes are now happening with our babies. All of their cords have now fallen off and the colour is coming through very quickly. I'm seeing quite a few Seal noses and ears now, and some of the other babies only have the very, very, lightest of colouring starting to appear so those ones will probably be our Blues. It always fascinates me when we do honeymoons with parents who are Agouti because you never know just how many tabbies you will end up with. Being a huge lover of the Tabby Point Siamese, the more Tabbies we get in a litter, the happier I am :) Another exciting change now is that tiny little eyes are starting to open up and it won't be long at all now before our children can be able to see the world. As for our babies' names, well we had already chosen a theme prior to the babies being born, however, the darn sexes soon put a rapid halt to our chosen them which meant we then sat down and spent an entire hour trying to come up with a new theme. So with this now sorted out, we would like to introduce you all to......................................

"The Racers"

Name	Sex
Red Rum	Female
Kingston Town	Female
Shergar	Male
Sea Biscuit	Female
Desert Orchid	Female
Phar Lap	Male

I did have the chance to show off our new babies this morning to a lovely lady named Helen who came to visit us today. Helen is considering having a new baby or two at some point this year or next and it was really nice to meet Helen. Regardless of whether or not Helen chooses to share her home with a Schimmel baby, I can easily say how much I enjoyed her visit today and I'm looking forward to going over to see Helen and meet her wonderful Alpaca's.

Day 4 - January 25, 2007

I don't know what to write. I know, today is another day and I know our 6 babies are all doing well, but that does not take away the pain I am still feeling from yesterday. Kitten diaries should probably make "happy reading", but when there is a loss such as this, it is so darn hard to be able to find something "happy" to write about. So instead, I will probably just ramble a bit so please bear with me. I have been told on numerous occasions by other "breeders" that my problem is that I take kitten deaths to heart and instead, I should just "sweep it under the carpet and forget about it". That will never happen, nor should it ever happen. It is impossible to be blase about the loss of life, any life. Each time I lose a baby, I lose a part of my own heart and soul. My fur children mean everything to me, from the moment they are first conceived, and I am finding that each loss gets harder and harder to bear. I have been told, again, by other "breeders" that if a kitten is struggling, leave it in the corner and wait until it dies. I have never done that in my life, and if I had of done that, that our darling Nocello would not be here today, nor would countless other Schimmel babies who have needed a helping hand. I'm going through such a roller coaster of emotions at the moment, which always happens when I lose a fur child. There is the anger, mainly directed towards God for doing this to Lusso and to me and for taking away our child. Then there is the sorrow which is so overwhelming, the image of Baby is imprinted in my mind and will never leave. I will never forget lifting his body out of the kitten box after he had passed away. That is so hard to do you know? to have to remove a dead baby from the kitten box. I remember kissing him, telling him I'm sorry, I remember looking into Lucy's eyes as I held her dead child and feeling so bloody helpless because I could not explain to our girl why I couldn't make her baby better. There is always the "what did I do wrong?". I have thought so hard about this one, as I always do, did I miss something, how is that possible? I spend so much time with these children but what if I did? There was no sign of anything wrong at all on the outside, mum was put on anti biotics as a precaution, mild ones that would not harm the babies. The Nutri Drops should have sustained Baby. Did I not feed enough? Did I feed too much? If I had taken Baby to the vets would it have made a difference. To that question I know from previous experience that the answer is almost certainly no because all the vet would have done is give a shot of Vitamin B12 which I did here myself. So what went wrong and why? One thing I would like very much to do, is to thank those incredibly kind people for their emails of sympathy. So many of them and each one I read brought tears to my eyes. What I found totally amazing was that quite a few of the emails were from our kitten families who have our more recent babies, and I guess it always comes as a surprise that kitten families who read the diaries for their own babies who are now with them, still continue to read our other diaries. I don't know why this surprises me but it does. To you lovely kitten families, your emails are so very special because you are all going through the stage of still bonding with your own new Schimmel children and I am so incredibly grateful that you took the time to email me. Then there are amazing people like Bev, from the start of this litter, she has offered me her support and advice, all of which made perfect sense, and when I lost Baby, she sent me such a very compassionate email. I have never met Bev but she has taken the time each day since our babies were born, to send me an email, and Bev is a very busy lady, not only is she a breeder, but she also runs and amazing cattery for feline's whose families need a bit of respite from their naughty antics, and this means so much to me. I'll never be able to repay Bev for her kindness. There is another very special person as well, that I need to thank and make special mention of, and that is Julia. Her email was the first to come in and what she wrote was so very special to me. I do hope that Julia will not mind me sharing this with you all, but her words were "I'm so sorry Kat. You aren't the only one shedding tears. It shouldn't happen but you did everything you could, and more I know. It just wasn't meant to be and sometimes although we will never know why a life ends we have to trust it is somehow for the best. Narnia's first kitten will have his/her left leg marked with blue." Julia, like Bev, is again someone whom I have never met and have only ever been in touch with via email, and for her to have said what she did means the world to me. To explain a tad more, Narnia is one of Julia's fur family members and breeding queens and Julia and I have been comparing our pregnancy diaries as Narnia is due just 9 days (approximately) after Lucy gave birth. One of the marvellous things to come out of breeding Siamese and Orientals is to find decent people like Bev and Julia, both of whom put their cats first and foremost...................an extremely rare thing amongst Siam. & Ori. breeders. Also, keeping in touch with people like these 2 ladies means that I am able to learn so much more about my own breeding, and I don't care how long anyone has been breeding, or how much of a novice we all are, we will never know everything there is and it is so wonderful to be able to share experiences and knowledge with other like minded breeders and I have learnt a lot from each of these ladies. As it stands at the moment, I've not answered anyone's emails and I would ask that you please just give me another day or two. I need to come to terms with our loss first and I need to be able to deal with it, before I can answer any emails, but please do know, just how grateful I am to all of you who have taken the time to express your condolences. Thank you also so very, very, much, to "Sparky" (I am so sorry, I should know your name, and I know somewhere in the back of my mind, I do know it, but I am just at such a loss at the moment) on Siamese Cat Chat for being so incredibly kind and leaving a message of sympathy last night, and thank you to all those wonderful members who took the time to also leave a message. Again, I have not replied to these posts, but will do so when I feel I can cope with it all. Thank you also, so much to my husband, who knew just how hard this loss hit me and for his support and love. I do have one more special little person to thank, of the furry variety which may seem odd, but here goes. When I had come back from outside where I had taken my Baby's body, I came back in, sat down on my chair and burst into tears. Within seconds, a very special little Black Tortie baby by the name of Roulette, was on my lap, standing up, her head nuzzling into my neck and purring away. Somehow, she knew that in my grief, what I needed was the kisses and purrs of another baby. And how right she was, she let me hug her, she let me cry on her, and she waited until I had finished sobbing before looking at me as if to say "it's okay mum, I'm here". The little girl will never be able to understand what her actions meant to me.

And now I should tell you a little about today. I haven't taken any photos for this entry and the reason for this is that today I went to Bristol to drop Roulette off to my mate Teen and to bring 2 kittens back. It was lovely to see all the fabulous Maroochydore cats again (and of course it was so great to see Teen and Val as well), and seeing my darling Tabbi, although she is not mine any more, she is Teen, Tone & Val's, but to see her was just wonderful. Our babies, who still do not have names but this will soon be remedied, were in the care of Graham today. There was very little for him to do, other than to feed Lucy a few times during my absence, and to check on each of the babies. I didn't arrive home until 1800 and am quite tired and still have to nip out to Tesco's now.

Day 3 - January 24, 2007 - TRAGIC UPDATE

At approximately 1600 today, tiny Baby went to Rainbow Bridge. He passed away very peacefully, in the company, warmth, and love of his mum and siblings. At this point in time, I am struggling to come to terms with losing little Baby and the grief is just overwhelming. I really do not know what to say, I am struggling to type through my tears at the loss of such a beautiful little child. For the life of me, I can not understand why God would allow such a precious being to enter this life, only to then remove him a few, very short days later.

Day 3 - January 24, 2007

I learnt an extremely valuable lesson yesterday afternoon, and that is...............to never, ever, forget to put the lid down on the ottoman. I had the ottoman open earlier in the day when I was replacing the bedding again in the box and had obviously forgotten to close it because when I was in with the babies that same afternoon, I went to get a towel from the ottoman so I could feed Baby number 4, only to discover Lusso had gone to the toilet in there! Not just a wee, no, that would have been bad enough, but a poo as well! This meant every single piece of bedding in the ottoman had to come out, be washed and bleached and then put in the dryer. Would you like me to tell you how many loads of washing it entailed altogether? 17! As you can imagine, I was not best pleased to find my workload had just increased. Still, it could have been worse, could have been on the carpet.

Now, onto some rather sad news. Despite feeding, supplementing, and even Vitamin B, little baby is going rapidly downhill, so much so that now he/she barely opens his/her mouth to suckle from the syringe. The weight loss has been quite dramatic but I am going to continue with the current routine in the hopes that baby will turn the corner but I can't help but think something isn't right on the inside maybe as there are some signs there. I'm not going to give up on baby though, it is all in God's hands and baby's fighting spirit. It is so very difficult as you can imagine and incredibly painful because watching a baby fade and being totally helpless just breaks your heart. My only consolation at the moment is that the other 6 babies are all now gaining weight and are doing extremely well at the moment. We had a case of Hills a/d arrive a short while ago and already, Tia Lusso has had 1/4 of a tin. a/d is very high in protein and as Bev of Azyeux Siamese and Ragdolls reminded me in an email, it is ideal food for the time being to help give a rich milk supply (thanks Bev). At the moment, I am not topping up any of the other babies, only tiny baby, because the other 6 are all heading in the right direction and are all feeding extremely well from mum. Something else that Bev reminded me was that the more I top up, the less chances of the milk flow being stimulated and as per usual, Bev is right.

Day 2 - January 23, 2007

We would appreciate some prayers for "Left Leg Blue" that is the colour I marked him/her. I was quite distraught to see he/she had lost 7 grams (he/she had lost 5 grams the previous 24 hours). I have given Nutri Drops again and I have made up a batch of kitten formula which is cooling down at the moment so I can then go and top him/her up, and a couple of the others up. So Baby Number 4 is my biggest worry at the moment and weighs just 89 grams. I'm desperately hoping that the supplementing and topping up will make a difference. The other weights weren't too bad. Baby number 1 lost 3 grams but is still 106 grams so that is okay at the moment. Baby number 2 gained 4 grams, Baby number 3 gained 9 grams, Baby number 4 lost 7 grams, Baby number 5 gained 7 grams; Baby number 6 remained at the same weight, Baby number 7 gained 8 grams. As you can see by these weights some of the babies need assistance so I'm going to be very busy over the next few days as I try to get some weight on the kids by hand feeding. Again though, all 7 babies are lively, Tia Lusso is very content and still rarely gets out of the box and leaves them. I had to re-mark all 7 babies when I weighed them today because already the marks are coming off. So much for permanent markers! Still, at least there is enough of a faded mark left every 24 hours that I can quickly mark the baby again and no mistakes are being made. It's not particularly clear in the photos but already there are signs of a Seal Point baby or two amongst the litter (could be solid or tabby point, time will tell).

Day 1 - January 22, 2007

Our 7 new children spent the last 24 hours alternatively sleeping and suckling. Already it appears that all 7 children are feeding and Tia Lusso is looking extremely good. I did have to giggle though at about midnight when I was checking on the babies again to find 4 babies sound asleep, 2 babies feeding, and the remaining baby was also feeding, alas, instead of feeding from mum's nipple, he/she was trying to feed from the ear of one of the babies who was suckling. This went on for a number of minutes as the poor child tried to obtain milk from his/her littermates ear, then face, then top of head. Yes, I did then point baby in the right direction towards the milk bar. I was a bit concerned at around 8pm as Lusso still wasn't showing much signs of eating anything herself and with 7 babies it is so important that she eats large quantities of food. She was left with 3 different plates of food overnight, Sheba, Hi Life (kitten) and Natures Menu (kitten). This morning when I first woke up I went into the room to check on the children and Lucy I was delighted to see she had eaten all the Hi Life and Natures Menu. I brought the plates downstairs and went straight back up with a plate containing 1 pouch of Hi Life and 1 pouch of Natures Menu both mixed in together. These are extremely good commercial kitten foods and between these and her James Wellbeloved biscuits, hopefully this will be enough to keep the milk flowing so the babies will gain weight. I must admit that I have been in a panic all morning because I had made my mind up that 1pm would be the weighing time for the babies and 7 is such a lot of babies and despite the fact that they seem to be feeding in shifts, I have been worried sick that when I weighed them, everyone would have dramatically lost weight. I know I could have weighed them first thing this morning, but I always do 24 hours weigh ins at the same time every day so by 1pm, the babies will be just over, or around 24 hours old. So now, having weighed the babies, this is what has happened: Baby number 1 weighed 109 grams (gained 1 gram); Baby number 2 weighed 92 grams (lost 4 grams); Baby number 3 weighed 112 grams (gained 1 gram); Baby number 4 weighed 96 grams (lost 5 grams); Baby number 5 weighed 99 grams (lost 6 grams); Baby number 6 weighed 96 grams (no gain, no loss); Baby number 7 weighed 100 grams (lost 7 grams); Overall, I'm not too despondent as the losses are not massive ones, and it's not uncommon for babies to lose during the first 24 hours as the milk may not be through properly. Having said that, in typical panic stricken nature, after weighing the babies, each baby has now been give 0.01 mil of Nutri Drops which will give them all (hopefully!) a boost. Although all 7 are very lively and they all seem to be feeding off and on. I will not weigh them again now until approximately 1pm tomorrow because if I were to weigh them every few hours, not only would I be disturbing them which means they wouldn't be feeding, but I would start to become paranoid. If, by tomorrow, there still aren't any gains, I shall start topping, firstly with Royal Canin Vita Milk, and then a few days later, I will go back to my normal evaporated milk formula as I personally find that helps much more with weight gains than the specially designed formulas do. The reason I will start off with the RC formula is because it contains colostrum which is crucial for the babies during these first few days. At some point in the next day or two, Graham and I will have a look at the sexes and try to ascertain just what we do have and once that has been done, the babies will be given their new names. One thing I have been struggling with is the temperature in the kitten room and the reason for this is that normally, babies are born, they have a heat pad, the window is open, but the central heating is on. So it was really unfortunate that on Friday, the boiler decided to stop working so we've had no central heating since Friday. This meant that as soon as Lusso had finished giving birth and all was okay, Graham and I flew down to Argos to buy a free standing heater for the kitten room because we can not have babies in there without heating. So the window has been closed and the heater going, but then the room is too warm, so I've opened the small window but and turned the heater down however a few hours later, the room was too cold. So the heater got turned back up and hopefully, that will keep everything warm without me cooking the poor babies. It was also a nightmare in the respect that once the first baby was born, I realised I didn't have any spare heat pads and boy boys have a heat pad each, which left me with one that I don't feel does the job, so we had to take Sheridan's heat pad from him (don't worry, the stud house is actually warmer than our own home), but what that meant was I had to order another large heat pad today so hopefully that will arrive on Wednesday.

Birth - January 21, 2007