Pregnant Rescue Cat

[Lionwholived]

I wanted to title this "I'm just really anxious about a lot of things and I want someone to tell me it's going to be okay OR that I should go to the vet, or any reassurance or advice really" but it was too wordy.

The *short* story is I picked up a cat in mid december, chose to keep her, and learned she was pregnant. She has not had the kittens yet even though she's at the very, veeeery tail end of how long she can possibly be pregnant for. I am very anxious in general and I figured instead of backreading every single sort of relevant post in this forum I'd just post my own!!

I rescued her December 14th. I read that it can take up to 2 weeks for implantation, which means she is at minimum 67 days pregnant. I called our vet last week and they said to bring her in this week if she hasn't had them yet, which I plan on doing. She got a check up the day after my girlfriend and I rescued her, she was banged up a bit and had some bruises but nothing else, we haven't brought her back since that but we'll be going in on Tuesday if she hasn't had the kittens yet as per the vet's orders.

I'm anxious that something is wrong mostly because I am just the sort of person who is always anxious that something is wrong. She's not big on me handling her outside of loves and pets but what efforts I have put into feeling for kitten movement haven't given me any - I'll feel for them for a few minutes, and I'll be able to feel individual kittens, but they don't really move. She doesn't lay with her side exposed very much and I don't know how frequently or obvious movement would be, but whenever I see posts about other people having a very pregnant cat they talk a lot about kitten movements so I am worrying.

Also she's gotten some new scabs - her scrapes and bruises she had when we picked her up are gone, but she's getting new ones around her ears and neck. I've rescued strays before, I know it's probably fleas, but she's black and I don't know anything about how safe it is to flea and deworm a pregnant cat. I mean, I'm asking my vet when I'm there on Tuesday, but I'm not there now. Anyway, no sign of fleas have spread to our other animals which I do find odd, but I don't know what the scabs would be other than fleas.

She's done some nesting but no milk or anything like that that indicates she's right about to pop. No idea how old she is or if she's had kittens before, unfortunately.

sorry i know i wrote basically a novel here. i'm just having a lot of trouble figuring out where my anxiety ends and reality begins.

 

[di and bob]

But she has gotten bigger, right? That would indicate the kittens are growing. I swore on a couple of my cats that they went way over their due date, and everything went fine. She IS at the end of her time, I would definitely bring her to the vet as he advised. Was there any time she got outside after you got her that she could have gotten pregnant at a later date?
As for the scabs, look in the crease between her thighs and abdomen when she is laying on her back. Fleas are easy to see here where the hair is a lot thinner. It could be allergies,either to foods or hormone changes. She could have just dry skin and scratches. Make sure she is getting good nutrition by giving her kitten food or chow.
As long as she is not in distress, howling or nervous, everything should be OK. It is concerning that she was bruised and beat up when you got her, there could have been injury to the kittens, but if she got bigger they should be OK.
PLEASE keep us posted, I want to know how she does! All the luck!

 

[Lionwholived]

Gods thank you so much for responding.

She's definitely been getting bigger! We started being on labor alert like two weeks ago when she would have just moved into the earliest she could have given birth, and I remember thinking she looked sort of small. I do not think she looks sort of small now. For sure she's bigger! She'll let me gently lay my head on her side sometimes, and I can hear it bubbling and gurgling away, just no notable movement. I definitely felt one earlier today, but I couldn't feel clear movement - it's really hard to tell, because I've got to hold out from my body with one hand and feel with the other, if I don't want a hand full of scratches. It's not a pain thing I don't think, she's just fussy.

Once she got outside for about 17 seconds - enough time to get to the fence in our yard, at which point my girlfriend picked her up and brought her inside. Beyond that she's indoors only - she sure *wants* to be an outside cat, but it's not gonna happen, not now & not after she gets spayed (which we're going to schedule as soon as we can after the birth).

I haven't felt any scabs around her groin - she's very big on letting you know with all 4 of her clawed paws when she does not want you to be where you are, so I don't think it'd be very successful to check there for scabs - I figure the vet will tell me on tuesday if I ask, though. My GF thought maybe she was getting herself with her paws scratching herself. I dunno.

I think the bruising would have happened before the kittens implanted, but it all healed up just fine.

She's not howling or anything. She doesn't get along with our other two cats, but we keep them in different areas of the house closed off - probably once or twice a day when we're going in and out of "her room" one of the cats will get sight of another and hiss and run off back to their safe spaces, but the other cats aren't allowed in here and she mostly acts like herself. She likes pets and napping and looking out the window. She's been on kitten food since week 5 or 6, but in the last week or two she's been eating less so I was gonna start adding in wet food too.

She's been doing this thing for the last couple days where she'll sort of huff? I thought it was sneezing at first but it isnt, it's like this force of air out of her nose. It won't really seem to be in response to anything, just when she's walking around. There's this little tense up of her body too. She's a snorer, my GF thinks it might be a respiratory thing, but she's been snoring the whole time we've had her and the occasional huffing just started. I dunno, it's almost like a flinch, I was guessing she was gettin' kicked by her kittens.

 

[di and bob]

Yes it could definitely be the kittens pressing up onto her diaphragm. She may be having some pre labour pains too. Everything sounds good, you have everything under control. You will be blessed for helping this little girl, thank you.

 

[Lionwholived]

Thank you!

The story about we got her is c r a z y, too. We had a serious house fire that night, and one of our two cats was stuck inside the house during the fire (SPOILER: he's 100% okay). After the fire was out, a firefighter found him alive & got scratched by him pretty bad trying to calm him down. After this, we saw no sign of him inside so we thought he ran out through a window (I opened the window & kicked out the screen so he could get out before I evacuated once I realized I wasn't going to find him in time).

Right before we left to stay at a hotel that night, a black cat IDENTICAL to him darted out of the bushes for us. We picked them up, thought it was Carbon, and after a vet trip and some babying they were still acting wayyyy different than Carbon - but we just thought it was serious trauma displaying. About a month later, during one of our many trips into the house, we found Carbon hiding behind a dresser - he'd been in the burned out house the whole time. Other than skinnier, he was totally fine. Seeing the two black cats next to each other was a TRIP.

We named the new cat Antimony (Tim for short), and about a week later she started showing signs of pregnancy. This whole story is an adventure from start to finish, but we're happy we got to adopt a new cat who wasn't going to get the care she needed without us.

 

[StefanZ]

ADVANTAGE II is a preparate safe for preg and nursing moms for defleasing.
Probably there are other OK preparates too, but we are sure on this one.

Do not use Hartz products.

Edit:
Sorry for mix up. Advocate is a good preparate but I meant adwantage as Sarthur2 reminds.

 

[Lionwholived]

Thank you!!

 

[Sarthur2]

It’s Advantage II, and is safe during pregnancy. She can also be de-wormed safely during pregnancy as well.

You definitely need to treat for fleas before the kittens come. Fleas can easily cause anemia in tiny kittens.

 

[Lionwholived]

Oh, alright. Advantage is what we use on our other animals already. I'm very big on doing whatever my vet says to do tomorrow, pretty much. I haven't (thank god) seen any sign of worms & have been checking pretty regularly but if she's got fleas I'm going to assume there's worms.

 

[Lionwholived]

well, in what is a great relief to me, her belly's gone lopsided. So if nothing else, those kittens *are* moving, but I'm guessing they're starting to drop?

 

[Sarthur2]

Hard to say! But at least they are moving!