Four kittens, Mama, and Me

They are tiny, four weeks old, grey with blue eyes. One of the males has a slight white blaze on his chest. One of the females is the most distinctive with white paws, a white chest, and a white line that circles the edge of her ears. She has a white ring around both eyes, which makes her eyes look very large. The other two kittens are identical except one is male and one is female. Their nails are so small, but they use them to climb everything. Unlike larger cats, no damage is done to the furniture. They weigh in around 400g. When they meow, it is a high almost inaudible peep. I'm never sure who is peeping.

All four kittens are there.

They are all long-haired. There is a breed called Russian Blue. Usually completely grey and retain their blue eyes throughout their lives. Perhaps Mama had Russian Blue in her.

When I travel back to the US, I leave my cat, Bijou, in Paris. Even a nonstop flight to San Francisco would require her to be in her crate for a minimum of 15 hours: 40 minutes to the airport, 2 to 3 hours at CDG, 11 hours on the plane, and one hour Bart ride to Oakland after whatever time it takes to get through Customs and Border Control. It all feels very cruel to me. So Bijou stays in Paris and I volunteer as a foster parent for Hopalong Animal Rescue. When I first arrived in November, I fostered Aleppo and Cayenne, two twelve-week old unrelated kittens. Both were sick with an illness that is contagious to other cats but not to humans. Cayenne, who lived up to his name, is an orange and white tabby and just about the friendliest kitten one could imagine. Aleppo is completely black, smaller than Cayenne, and followed him everywhere. They adored each other. After a month of daily medicine, they were fixed and both have been adopted.

Aleppo and Cayenne

Then I was asked to foster three very “shy” beauties. I put the shy in quotes because shy was another way of saying ‘still mostly feral’. I had them for a week and a half and they never came near me. They eventually wandered around the third floor level of my home that I have segregated from the rest of the house. But they would scram and hide in the boxsprings of my bed if I even made a movement.

Two of the three “shy” kittens

I suspect I was given Mama and the four kittens partly as a way to say thank you for sitting with the three little terrors.

When I'm sitting on my couch writing or watching some streaming on TV, the kittens treat me as if I were a climbing cat tree. Using their tiny little nails, they pull themselves up my jeans to my lap. From there, each will find a resting spot depending on what I’m wearing. one will fall asleep in the hood of my sweatshirt. Another finds any opening in a bathrobe or zippered sweat. One curls up where one of my legs crosses the other, and one will fall asleep even as he is falling off my lap.

So where is Mama? When they arrived, all four kittens were snuggled up against her belly. She becomes a ragdoll. The kittens push each other around, trying to find the best place to sleep, or suckle. Mama’s hind leg may be straight up in the air while she tries to accommodate her brood. On the second full day that I had them, Mama found the box springs of the bed and crawled off for the entire day to rest. She is very thin. She has four white paws and a completely white chest and a pleading look in her eyes. She looks as tired as a human mother with four week olds.

Mama is such a fur ball that you can’t see she weighs 5.5 lbs and is skin and bones.

Today, I ate my lunch up there with everyone. Mama came and jumped up on my lap. She really does seem wiped out. She purred when I petted her and we had a few sweet minutes together. Then, all four kittens started climbing my legs and snuggled into her belly. They fought over the best places, knocked each around, falling off my lap, climbing back up and eventually everyone fell asleep. Except Mama.

Four days in, it was clear that Mama wasn’t well. She has lost almost 2 pounds. Yesterday and today, she growls at the kittens if they come near her. Everyone went back to Hopalong yesterday for a check-up. Mama got lots of saline to hydrate her. Last night she threw it all up. I was given milk substitute, itty bitty baby bottles to feed the kittens, plus transition food. They are having none of it. One of them drank a lot of the substitute milk then threw up all over my bed as I was going to sleep.

I was at my wits end. I’m now afraid Mama will die on my watch. The kittens seem fine, they just aren’t gaining any weight. I’ve bottle fed kittens in the past, many times actually, before I moved to Paris. All of them were motherless and so grateful for fake nipples and substitute milk. These kittens know Mama is nearby. My sense of them being so cute and lovable is passing. I feel I’ve taken on more than I can handle. Caring for them is a full time job. There is a reason I never wanted to be a mother. I’m too impatient and I scare easily.

As I type, Mama has gone back into hiding. She came out for a few minutes, growled, then hid. The babies are asleep in a big grey heap on my couch. Monday, they will return to Hopalong and to another foster family. I will be flying to Kansas City and AWP 24.

A bientôt,

Sara