Stray Preggo Cat

So, I took in the stray mother cat last night that I met last summer when she had two kittens. She is the neighborhood cat and I know of at least two other households that leave food for her and her previous litter (two kittens). However, she is very pregnant again at this point. She looks like she swallowed a cantaloupe. (honestly THAT BIG)

I've let her into my apartment before but my 6 year old neutered male, Shaggy, has never been able to get along with her. The time she spent indoors with him usually ended up with him picking a fight and me having to let her back outside. During her time indoors she'd find a place on my couch or bed and sleep for a while. This time, however, she has been snooping around into small dark spaces. She has been moving around a lot today, seemingly "nesting".

I'm not sure when she got pregnant but the past week or two she's nearly tripled in size. I'm figuring it's soon because her tiny little frame doesn't seem like it can hold much more.

I hadn't been able to bring her inside when I first noticed she was pregnant because she'd always catch me on my way out to work (not a good situation when you can't supervise two cats, one incredibly jealous) or I just couldn't find her!

Shaggy seems to get along with her better than ever before, maybe it's because she's soo placid. But, Shaggy is still jealous.

Anyway, I have a few questions...

ETA of kittens? (rough estimate if possible)
Is it okay to give her a bath(with flea and tick shampoo)? (she's rather big in the belly and I'm afraid that restraining her will cause her excess stress or possibly harm the kittens)

Anyway, Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

It is awesome of you to care for this mama cat to be but please for the sake of your resident cat, confine her to one room like a bathroom so she does not transfer any disease or parasite to him until she has been vet checked. Maybe try a feliway plug in to ease the mood of a new cat in the household, but above all get her to a vet asap to have her checked over, wormed if possible while pregnant and then after the babies come have her appropriately vaccinated... then after babies are weaned please please please have her spayed so she does not have to deal with another pregnancy. do you plan on keeping her? someone Correct me if im wrong but i am pretty certain that frontline is safe to use on pregnant queens as far as de fleaing/ticking her goes. But at this point she is sure to already have worms from being a stray as well as her unborn kittens... it is important to get her wormed at the vets Asap, but use the frontline to get rid of any infestation that is on her body!

I just got back from the vet and Mumma Kitty is in very good health! The vet suspected she'd be delivering in about a week. I'm soo excited! I will definately be keeping her and getting her spayed after all her kittens find homes!

Arrr thats great news and well done you for looking after this momma

Good luck with the upcoming birth and well done for looking after mum cat. Look forward to reading your updates as the week progresses.

Good luck with your kitty! Please post pictures if you are able, we love pictures here!!

Such wonderful news! My Bella was a stray and we took her in...its been wonderful since!!

Here's some pictures of Momma taken last night. Any suggestions for a name? I've always called her Momma-Kitty, but I think she needs an Official name.



As you can tell I wasn't exaggerating when I said she look like she swallowed a cantaloupe!

And this is the Uncle-to-Be, Shaggy! (I know he's not long haired or "shaggy" in anyway but he was a little puff ball when he was a kitten.)



And please be prepared for tons of pictures of the kittens when they arrive!

Krys

Shaggy is very handsome. The poor little girl is so big! How fortunate she is in good health. That is a big relief. I am awful at choosing names. Took me forever to name Daphne. How about Autumn or Sasha? You could wait a few days to get to know her a bit and see if anything comes to mind for a name.

So glad you took her in! I'm sure Shaggy will come to love her and the kittens

She's gorgeous! How wonderful of you to take her in

The first Tortie we ever had was called Pepper - this is because we were looking for something that could be black, white or brown, and Pepper comes in all three varieties!

Not very original I know but there's a suggestion!

~Aww poor girl looks so umm PREGGOS! You can imagine how it must be for cats because Im a mother 2 three and its frusterating being pregnant in the last month for US so for them with more than a couple babies has to be even worse.~

~In my opinion she looks like a Zamora or Bianca but Daphne would go well with the SHAGGY lol as in Scooby Doo!

do you want a name that means something? [btw i suck at naming animals too] since you called it momma cat you could name it something that means mother.
NAME MEANING ORIGIN GENDER FAVORITES
ABRA Mother of Nations Hebrew Female add to namelist
AMMA Mother Sanskrit (India) Female add to namelist
BAYARMAA Mother of Joy Mongolian Female add to namelist
BOLORMAA Crystal Mother Mongolian Female add to namelist
DEMETER Barley-mother Greek Female add to namelist
MADRA Motherly Spanish Female add to namelist
MADRONA Mother goddess Welsh Female add to namelist
MENA Woman, Mother-Goddess Sanskrit (India) Female add to namelist
NEITH Ancient Egyptian mother goddess Egyptian Female add to namelist
SHIMA Mother Native American Female add to namelist
UMAYMAH Young Mother Arabic Female add to namelist
UMMI My Mother Sanskrit (India) Female add to namelist

there are names that mean mother and are copied and pasted off of babynames .com since it wouldn't let me post th elink.
http://babynames.com/Names/Pets/index.php?pettype=Cat
cat names

thank youf or taking this sweet girl in and getting her spayed when her kittens are weaned. Now she won't have to have any more babies and can concentrate on just being a spoiled kitty! And definitely post pictures!