We are 10 weeks old now!

Day 69 - January 21, 2008

Both kitten diaries are the same today and that is only because I want to give you all an idea of where we are up to with our babies but before I go into that, I do need to say something else :) Graham and I are delighted to announce that on January 19th at his 2nd ever TICA show, Ashanti became a Gr Ch and is now known as Grand Champion Schimmel Stripe It Lucky.

Now onto our babies........................well all 9 fur children are doing extremely well although they are sick and tired of being confined to their kitten room and the time has come to allow them back into full home access. In actual fact, they will be removed from the kitten room all together as we have brand new babies waiting to move into the kitten room. We are hoping to move the Indians and Monkeys out of the room on Wednesday depending on whether or not the engineer will be able to fix the boiler. Since Saturday evening we have had no heating in the home so all the windows have been closed. Fortunately the kitten room is relatively warm so none of our babies have been cold but it has been much colder downstairs.

I don't know how they will take to suddenly being part of the family again but I am hoping it will not take them particularly long to readjust. For the time being I am happy with our babies' progress, so much so that we are planning to sort our their first set of vaccinations very soon. Who knows..................maybe later this week I will even manage a photo of two of the babies.

Day 63 - January 15, 2008

This is yet another extremely difficult diary entry to have to put online. So much so that I did actually wonder whether in fact to just remove our current 2 kitten diaries altogether and just let it go at that. The problem with kitten diaries is that you are, in effect, baring your "breeding soul" to the entire world and that is all well and good when things go right, but when something goes wrong it is incredibly difficult. You have 2 choices, either you lie, or you say exactly how it is. Rightly or wrongly, I have decided to simply say what is happening because at the end of the day, the majority of breeders all go through incredibly tough times and there is never any shame in admitting that not everything is as perfect as you want it to be. I have always been a firm believer that when something goes wrong, then "sweeping it under the carpet" serves no purpose. What we must do always do is take action, deal with the issues at hand, and above all else, we should be able to hold our hands heads up high, knowing that we have done everything humanly possible for our babies. If we have made a mistake, or if we have missed something, even the smallest thing, then we have to hold ourselves accountable. A friend once said to me something along the lines of "If you know that you have done everything within your power to save that baby, any baby, and yet still lost that baby, then at least you can lay your head on pillow at night with a clear conscience". She is right of course.

A couple of nights ago, we tragically lost another baby. I am not saying which one as I am still trying to get in touch with the baby's kitten family. Having lost Funky Monkey so very recently, to then lose another fur child a few short days later is just more heartbreaking than some of you can imagine. By rights, I should have possibly had a pm done after the 2nd loss but to be totally honest, I just could not have faced it. In the past we have had pm's done when we have lost a baby and the majority of the time we get no cause of death and it is put down to FKS.

I could not put into words just how difficult a time this has been for us, so much so that we have spent many hours contemplating whether or not to carry on. I was of course reminded by my darling husband that we have been through worse times than this, and still carried on and worked through it. As per usual, he is right, and even if I wanted to give up breeding, I don't have a choice at the moment as we have a couple of ladies due within the next 7 days. These due ladies (well not all of them) are the last of the accidental matings because after they occurred, it was then that both boys were put in their own stud room and can not access the girls at all. So with babies due, giving up at the moment, is not an option. After the birth of our forthcoming babies, and how they get on, we will take it from there and see. Although I must say, having now typed this entry which I had been unsure about doing, I now actually feel that we will get through this one way or another.

At the moment, out of our 9 remaining babies, 8 of them are all doing quite well and as I type this entry, I can hear them upstairs thundering around doing goodness knows what. When we lost our 2nd baby, we made the decision that all babies, and their mum's would be confined to the kitten room. No one other than Graham or myself goes in there, we will not accept kitten families, or even friends to visit them at the moment. We simply can not afford to put any of the kids at risk to picking up a bug that someone may bring into the home. Especially when we are still quite concerned about one of the children. As you know, our Indians are now 13 weeks old and by rights should have been preparing to leave home now whereas our Monkeys are 9 weeks old and should be getting booked in for the first vaccinations. I think, next week, we will book in our Indians for their first vaccinations, but we will more than likely hold off our Monkeys' vaccines for another week or two.

I am sure that this must be also difficult for our kitten families who have been wanting to come and meet our cats and see the babies, but I'm sure you can all appreciate that our babies are our only priority at the moment. Once the Indians have had their first vaccinations, we will then have some idea of where we are with all of the kids and we will certainly know by then if all will be okay, or if the situation has worsened and I will then contact any of our waiting families and tell them where we stand. Should any of our waiting kitten families decide they would rather have a baby from another breeder then that is not a problem at all, please do just let me know so I can remove your name from our waiting list. I will certainly do my best to try and recommend another breeder for you if you prefer.

Our babies can not understand why they have been confined, and of course it's impossible to explain to them the reason why and believe me, I have tried. They are really missing having full house freedom and they are also missing the company of our adult cats.

For the time being, I will cease updating the diaries, solely because diary entries take up very valuable time that can, and should be spent with the babies. I'm hoping that after the first set of vaccines, our diaries can carry on as per normal but as mentioned, that will not be for at least another week.

I would like to thank all of our friends (you know who you are and there are too many to name) who have helped us through these very dark days. I would also like to thank our SOCOC friends for their very kind messages of love, sympathy and support. It is common knowledge that I am now taking some "time out" as Graham and I both feel that at the moment our time is best spent with the babies and each other. I do have countless emails from people which does often happen during such times of sorrow and I will answer those emails when I feel that I am able to deal with them so please do bear with me.