Does this cat look pregnant?

Anyone who's knowledgeable about kitten development, would you please go look at the four pictures and the video, all from today, that I just put up on http://cricketkitty.shutterfly.com/pictures ? Is that body shape within normal "kitten belly" limits, or should I still be worried? What could account for this? Parasites have been ruled out. Pregnancy is impossible, due to the fact that the kitten is only four months old, has been with me and had no contact with any unaltered cats for thirteen weeks, and is male.

Yes, he's male, so I know he can't *really* be pregnant. Even if he turned out to be a hermaphrodite, and physically precocious enough to be pregnant at only four months old, I've had him since May 8 and he's had no contact with any unaltered cats since then. Self-impregnation, even in true hermaphrodites which are vanishingly rare, is pretty much unheard-of except in myth. The plumbing doesn't bring sperm where it would meet eggs.

I got him from my neighbors, who found him all alone, crying insistently, in the yard behind a vacant house. He was about 4 weeks old, tiny for his age, and pot-bellied even then. We suspect his mother removed him from the nest, which we think was under the garage of the house behind that one, because he wasn't thriving.

Yes, he was checked for parasites, by two different vets, on two different days, using two different fecal samples and two different methods (one flotation, one centrifugation). He also had a giardia snap test. He tested negative for everything, but had the standard two-dose kitten deworming anyway, and also a two-week course of albon, just in case.

In the first eight weeks I had him, he had nine veterinary contacts, including three emergency clinic visits and one intensive-care hospitalization. Nothing specific was ever diagnosed, just "fading kitten syndrome." Besides bouts of dehydration, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, and wildly swinging electrolytes, the most consistent and recurring symptoms involved his gut: bloating, diarrhea, malabsorption (in retrospect, it seems he had trouble digesting even his own mother's milk), lots of days spent lying around miserably and refusing to eat, other days spent eating ravenously, taking in enormous amounts of food, but only gaining tiny amounts of weight, or sometimes even losing weight.

The night he was admitted to the hospital, he had three attacks where he appeared to be in the process of dying, limp unresponsive body, eyes open but unfocused and unresponsive, lips parted, gums white--and during those attacks, there was a spot on his belly (which was already swollen) that looked darker and had a bruised appearance, and felt hard. Each time, after a few minutes in that condition, he resumed being conscious and responsive (though weak and critically ill), and the dark hard spot on his belly went away (though the belly itself remained swollen). Then 10-15 minutes later, another attack. We never did find out what it was. The vet didn't see it happen.

At 12 weeks old he seemed to make a miraculous improvement, as if his system finally reached a point of being viable. For the last five weeks he's been eating well, pooping well, growing steadily (though I think he's still small for his age), playing, purring, and only needing to see the vet for routine things like vaccinations and follow-up checks, no more emergencies. BIG relief!

But he still has that big swollen belly, and after everything he went through before, I'm still worried about what might be going on in there.

Money is a factor--I'm living on a $761-a-month disability check, and this kitten's vet bills have already added a few months' income to my credit card debt! I'm trying to decide if adding to that debt to get an ultrasound would be justified, or if I should wait and see what happens.

My vet doesn't know what to think, other than that he's adorable.

Hmm, someone else emailed me that his entire back half looks bigger than his front half. Weird.

But I tried, when he was lying still taking a nap, covering his front half and looking only at his back half, to see if his back half looked normal without the front half in view. The belly still looked way big.

And I don't think he's just fat, because there's no padding at all over his ribs. It's all belly bulging below.

Interesting you mentioned brain injury! About 10 weeks ago, when he was 7 weeks old and still not eating or drinking on his own, I asked my vet about it: seemed to be developmentally delayed in learning to eat and drink, had a wobbly baby gait beyond the age where that kind of gait would be normal, and seemed to have delayed reaction time to visual stimuli and poor visual tracking. The vet said she thought he might have brain damage from having his oxygen supply cut off during birth. Has anyone else had kittens that happened to? Did they walk like that?

He now eats and drinks just fine, and his visual tracking is much improved: see http://cricketkitty.shutterfly.com/mousetoy . And his walk is no long wobbly like it was earlier. I'd describe it now more as waddling than wobbling. He has no trouble jumping or climbing, either.

But you think that gait looks neurological, not mechanical (big belly, disproportionate front and back legs)?

OK, tonight I saw him standing in profile, but *not* bending his back legs the way he was in the picture at http://cricketkitty.shutterfly.com/pictures/13 . Yes, there is definitely a leg length mismatch! When he isn't crouching his back legs, there's a kind of dip just behind his shoulders: low in front of the dip, beginning of a dramatic upward slope behind the dip. Also his trunk looks disproportionately long. Almost looks like two kittens of different sizes telescoped together. What a weird-looking little animal!

So, has anyone seen cats with this kind of thing? Is he at risk of any kind of orthopedic or nerve problems?