Ebony's First Litter, Aka Lucky's Lucky Day

It was June 3rd, 2009. Out cat had been acting strangely lately. She kept trying to get outside, but our dog was out there and he and the cats have never gotten along with him well. Well, at least not Ebony. Usually, we let her outside, but we didn't want her to scratch Sunny.

You'd think he'd be able to fend for himself, but he wouldn't hurt a fly. But we weren't too worried about it, and a few days later she had stopped acting so crazy. We thought that she had probably just gotten hyper and forgot all about it. Until a few weeks later.

A couple of weeks later, I was petting Ebony, who always liked to snuggle me, when I noticed that her stomach was rather big. She had always been a rather large cat, not in the sense that she was overweight, but that she had always just been larger than other cats. But her stomach was still larger than usual. I dismissed it, thinking that she had probably just gained a little weight, and forgot about it yet again.

Another week passed, and Ebony started acting strangely. She kept looking around for little places to hide, and places that were flat and soft. I was confused and picked her up to see if I could find what was wrong. As I held her, I felt something wiggle in her stomach. This was the first time that I considered that she might be pregnant.

I looked it up on the internet, and sure enough, she had all the signs. Her nipples were red and giant, her stomach was huge, and she was constantly looking for safe places to nest.

I quickly took her to the vet and had her do an ultrasound, and lo and behold, inside her were 6 beautiful kittens (at least, that's what the vet said. The ultrasound just looked like a bunch of green goo to me)! The vet said that she sound have them in a day or so. I was surprised that they were that far along.

I brought her home, and as soon as I set her down on her blanket in the bathroom, she started panting. I ran and fetched the video camera, and as soon as I came back, there was a little kitten sitting beside her! It was so beautiful I thought I was going to cry.

Just as I turned the video camera on, she began pushing out the second kitten. He came out without any trouble and soon was nursing with the other one. I filmed them for a little while, then when I looked over at Ebony, a little pair of feet stuck out! She pushed the little guy out, and he wriggled around a little bit. Suddenly, he stopped. I carefully put a finger to his chest, and got no heartbeat. He wasn't breathing.

"Oh no!" I thought. I carefully picked him up in one hand and pulled the yucky sac stuff off his face. I gently blew into his mouth, and he coughed and came back to life. I set him down and he immediately began nursing. Ebony had already given birth to another kitten, who took her place beside him.

After another hour or so, she had given birth to all seven. I tied soft little colored yarns around their feet to identify them until they got names. There was one male black one, one female black one, one female dalmatian colored one (black and white speckles), one male orangey-white one, 2 female calico twins, and one grey girl, who was the smallest in the litter.

The one who came out feet-first was the white-orange male, and we named him Lucky, because he was lucky I saved him (yay me)!

These kittens have just reached 5 days old and are the cutest critters in the world. Wish me luck!