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

Tia Maria

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

Week 14

Tia Maria's 4th Kitten Diary - July 2005 to October 2005

We are now 1 week old!

Day 6 - August 1, 2005

For whatever reason Tia Maria decided that she wanted one of her babies with her and last night at 14 minutes past midnight, our smallest Seal Point baby went to Rainbow Bridge to join her and to be with his proper mummy. It was so very sad and so heartbreaking as I sat with him while he faded away but when he went I was just so relieved that he was no longer suffering and he's now with Tia. Our other 4 babies are doing well and are making weight gains still on a daily basis. I'm just hoping and praying that they will continue to thrive. They are noisy babies and none of them are backwards in coming forwards when it comes to the milk bar. I do feel so very sorry for Amaretto as I watch the milk battles at every feeding time. Whenever the babies are sleeping, Amaretto gets out of the box and finds somewhere quiet in the kitten room to sit on her own just so that she can have a break.

Day 5 - July 31, 2005

Colours have been appearing on Tia's babies' ears for the last day or so and I can now confirm that we have 2 Seals and 3 Blues (remembering of course that these can either be tabbies or solids). Tia's fattest baby definitely does not like me yet because during one of the feeding times this morning he/she hissed at me................continuously. This only stopped when it dawned on the baby I actually had food for him/her and then it was a different story. Two of Tia's largest babies now have their eyes fully open and the smaller ones are not too far behind them. I have come to the conclusion that I went overboard with the permanent marker when I put Tia's babies in with the Chocolate Bars. I had marked all of Tia's with blue permanent marker under their front arm on one side and even now, it's still rather apparent when I look at them, to the point that I'm a bit concerned they may have blue patches for the rest of their lives. Why I could just put a little dot I do not know. Apart from that, the babies are still holding their own for now.

Day 4 - July 30, 2005

I am so very tired as I write this, we all are. The 2 hour feedings are exhausting and obviously, we also have our own other adult cats and younger kittens who need our attention. At the moment we are getting about 5 hours sleep a day. It is definitely worth it though as all of Tia Maria's babies are hanging in there and are holding their own. We haven't had a weight loss now for 2 days which is so very surprising. We have 3 babies here who were a concern a couple of days ago because they are much smaller now than everyone else however, the constant feeding and the supplements are working because each 24 hours, they gain a bit more. They are very active and just like the Chocolate Bars, their eyes are now starting to open up. Graham keeps asking me about names for these babies but every time, my answer is the same, "I don't know". Prior to this litter being born, we did have a few themes picked out and I guess that at some point they will have to have names but my heart simply isn't in it. I think it's taken me an hour to type this small entry because a lot of the time I am just staring blankly at the words in front of me on the screen. Doing these entries are just so difficult because even though life goes on and the world has not stopped since Tia Maria left me, my world that has stopped and I know that life must carry on as normal, but for me it is far from normal. This is now where I learn to live with the pain and accept it as being part of my daily life. In between feeding the babies, today I will be making a start on replying to all the emails that people so very kindly sent and I would ask that all those people please bear with me and say that I am not ignoring your emails, I'm just working through each one bit by bit. 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 3 - 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 emailled 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.

Day 1 - July 27, 2005

Day 1 and what a day it has been. As I type this entry, our babies have only just turned 1 day old remembering that they were born in the late afternoon yesterday. (so actually, Tia's diary entries, to try and keep in time with their birth will not go online each day until late afternoon). You will recall me saying in the birth entry how I didn't think Tia had finished totally. All day today she has done very little, been trying to push, and by 3:30pm was looking exhausted and I was very worried about her. She was booked into my vets at 5:20pm today however at 4pm I phoned them and took her straight in. Andy had a very good feel of her and within a few squeezes, she omitted an extremely loud fart (excuse my language) that stunk the place out. Our daughter who was with me, burst out laughing, I was highly embarrased and Andy took it all in his usual good stride. It turns out that the queen that I was so desperately worried about, appears to have an awful lot of gas inside her which is making her extremely uncomfortable and rather bloated (she is still very massive). She was given a shot of Oxytocin (spelling?) as this will give her more contractions and will expel any remaining bits still inside her. I am sure that tomorrow I will be laughing about this incident and probably not feeling quite so embarrased about having rushed a cat with gas into my vets thinking it was an emergency :( but in my defence, I know Tia extremely well and I knew that she wasn't feeling right and like all breeders, we do not take any chances with our beloved girls. As for her babies, when I weigh them later tonight I will fully be expecting them all to have lost a bit of weight as Tia hasn't been in the box feeding them nearly as much as she would have normally due to how uncomfortable she has been feeling. I have topped them up a few times now with Colostrum although they were feeding off Tia on and off today. She is an amazing mum, even when she felt quite bad, she still lay down so they could feed and put her arms around them. I am now just hoping that once the contractions start, which should be soon, she will hopefully get rid of all the gunk still inside her and will then feel more normal.

Birth - July 26, 2005

There was no way on earth that Tia Maria was going to give birth unless I was in the room. She does this every single time. On the evening on the 25th, she still hadn't gone into labour (she was due Monday) and I was so shattered because I'd been up all night with Amaretto who had gone into labour so I asked Tia if she intended to deliver her babies that evening because I was tired and if she was, then I would have to go and make a flask of coffee. She looked at me and said "it's okay mum, go to sleep, nothing will happen tonight". So Tia and I went to sleep and slept quite well actually. Tuesday, 26th July, I was downstairs during the morning, and wasn't sitting up there with her although I was going upstairs every half hour to make sure all was well. I then went upstairs to stay with her at about 2pm. Wouldn't you know it, 2 pages into the new Harry Potter book and we were off. Baby number 1 is being delivered. As always with Tia's babies, I did cords, she did some of the sacs, groomed the babies but that was as far as it went really. Tia is one of those mum's who doesn't like to have her babies in with her while she is still in labour so the babies sit on my bed on the heat pad keeping warm until Tia is ready to have them back. About 20 minutes after number 1, then number 2 pops out, again it was the same thing, I did cords, while Tia did a bit of the sac and then baby number 2 was weighed and put on the heat pad also. Only 18 minutes later, number 3 is delivered and after weighing number 3, I was wondering how the heck Tia was managing this so easy as these babies are all huge (as you'll see by the details below). Once she'd finished with number 3, she decided she was hungry so she polished off a plate of Hills Petit Pate and then had a bit of a stretch and got out of the box to walk around. She jumped up onto the bed as she could hear her babies and I figured that was a good time to change the bedding and pop mum and babies back in the box together so she can bond with them. Then approximately 40 minutes later, number 4 arrives, (this was our smallest baby) and then eventually, number 5 was born. The problem now though was that I was convinced there was still at least one more baby because I could definitely feel something and Tia was still quite large on one side. After it appeared that she was not going to do anything else for the time being, I changed the bedding again and put the babies in the box with her, some wanted to sleep, others wanted to feed but Tia was not having it. She groomed them, cuddled them but there was no way she was going to lie down and feed them which also made me think she still wasn't finished. Then after dinner, she was in the box, out of the box, in and out of the litter tray, under the bed and I was still convinced she hadn't finished and she still didn't want to feed her babies. I syringed all the babies some Colostrum as I wanted to make sure that they had something at least while waiting for their mum. Tia was more concerned with sitting on the bed with me than in the box with her babies and this is a common problem I have with Tia because she is so close to me and we have a very special bond but this isn't a good thing when her babies are relying on her. I did put her back in the box at around midnight and she still wasn't going back into labour. By 7am today, she was lying down feeding all her babies which I was really pleased about but I am not convinced it is all over yet. I would like to think it was for her sake, however I do not know. She is not in any discomfort, nor is she distressed so I'll be keeping an eye on her today to see what happens. Some of the photos below may be a bit gory so if you have a weak stomach, please don't look because I did take photos of some of the babies as they were actually being born. Tia has done me so very proud as usual and was simply amazing throughout the whole process.

Baby	Birth Time	Weight
Number 1	1408	109 grams
Number 2	1431	111 grams
Number 3	1449	109 grams
Number4	1533	105 grams
Number 5	1636	109 grams