Purr-fect baby

Well, fancy that, my daughter has learned to purr... as she is feeding she spreads her arms wide, extending and stretching each finger and using them to push either side of the breast she is feeding on and she begins to softly purr.

It's nothing like on the scale of mine, of course; I can definitely out-purr her in terms of decibels and intensity, but she is getting there.

She is doing so well developmentally; her rate of growth is incredible... with significant weight gain and more strength in her legs and arms. Mind you, she is still like a big round hippo with her tummy constantly full so that when she topples over onto her back she looks stranded and she has to rock back over to right herself!

I'm spending more time away from her as she sleeps heavily between meals so coming out fo the nest gives me time to eat and to sun myself in all my favourite spots. I love the sunny bay window even if it isn't as hot as it was now that autumn is here.

Peaceful Sleep

I'm off out to visit the vet today. Apparently, this is for my final wound check. It's well healed actually and though there is a scar, it's not nearly as prominent now and, thankfully, considering all the attention little one has given it suckling there, it's not bothering me at all.  To prove it, I'm back to climbing and jumping about just as I was before. Ha - I've been balancing again on the top of the TV while up there I am still trying to reach the ceiling too. Yes, of course I know that I'm making my human cross in the process 😸 ,  ROFLMAO - she is so nervous to come toward me to tell me off in case I fall which might cause me to use my claws on its screen as I try to save myself or even to use the TV as a springboard surface as I power jump to make an escape  which cause the TP to topple right  over!

I know she doesn't like me doing it and that I will get into trouble for it but just I can't seem to stop myself from exploring and challenging myself walking across that narrow ledge or to finally reach that ceiling.

Another thing I do that really irritates her is to "pretend dig" on the screen. I do keep my claws in so as not to scratch it. I just kind of like the feel of it as I run my paw pads down the smooth screen. - I time it so perfectly too, digging smack-bang in the middle of a TV show she is watching 😺   😹   😺   and getting right in the way!

A few minutes later I will climb up to where she is sitting and purr. All is instantly forgiven. I try not to abuse it too much but what I can I tell ya? I do love this power.

Eyes Open

I've been spending all my time these last few days learning the ropes. In a lot of ways it's come naturally with the learning curve smooth, clean and clear but other parts have been slippery strewn with hazardous boulders so not easy at all.

I have laid and sat on my baby several times. I am driven to lay down immediately I am near her and bare my tummy and chest but what I haven't got right all the time is being aware or too careful of where my baby actually is and how easy I am making it for her. She is after all blind!

I find getting her to keep still an issue too and hold her down with my arms or legs just so I can catch a break in the nest because most of the time she is relentless,  like a machine blindly seeking out food but silly girl has been sucking in all the wrong places and in doing so causing me so much pain. She might me a vampire with all this blood sucking she has done!

How do I manoeuvre it, hold it, carry it, help it or simply encourage it to sleep?

My human has been on hand... has carried out some rescues .... has helped with feeding and also encouraging my daughter to feed .... and she has sometimes needed to take my baby out of the nest which results in me having the strongest urge to put her back, making to hold her any way I can to move her back into her place. I need to react some how every time she squeals and sometimes those squeals are louder than others and I try to work out what they mean.

Today was a little bit different. I looked at my little girl and saw these big round and dark eyes staring right at me.  Goodness, those eyes are huge even, if they cannot see to much just yet. But they are open.

I do love her.... she makes the slightest sound and I am there... and I am trilling musically each time I return to the nest having taken a short break, or when I am in the nest and snuggle her.......she may look like a fat overfed hippo with her tummy stretched to bursting but she is my overfed hippo.

My human took a couple of photos as soon as we saw that her eyes were open today but,  by the time the camera was ready the little piglet was feeding again and by then her eyes were half closed. Still, it is an exciting landmark sort of day 😁


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The contented half shut eye of feeding.

Love this milk.

They are open, honest

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Pregnancy & Birth.

So, yeah, I've just became a mum. Crikey that whole pregnancy thing...it's one hell of a ride, especially as no one tells you whats happening...

It all began with a car ride with my human... nothing so unusual there. We sometimes go and stay with my humans mum for a few days and I quite enjoy it there because she has some great views from her windows - squirrels I'm told they are. I plan on catching myself one of those! Anyway this day we went to another place we'd not been before. I was in my fancy-schmancy cat carrier and we go in. From out of nowhere come all these other Sphynx ladies. I'm strictly a one cat household right now so natuarally I wasn't keen on all these critical eyes looking at me - and I let them know to back the hell off.

So, after a bit my human gets up and leaves me there.  I get taken to a room by this new human and thankfully away from those ladies (fine looking as they are) and I was let out of my carrier. Into the room struts this really hot and handsome Sphynx chap looking mighty fine -  Ladies, c'mon you know what I'm talking about, right? But, I wasn't gonna let him know it. I might have been hot to trot, but I'm not that kind of girl.

Next day, though he won me over. Sweet, sweet man, he'd kept a careful watch of me all night long meaning I could get my 8 hours of rest while he made sure those ladies didn't come in and disturb me. What a gent. Some girls apparently always to go for the bad boys, but not me! I like a guy with a polished exterior and a bit of swagger for sure, but I like him to have sophistication and a kind and tender heart.

Suffice to say then that we spent a few hot 'n' steamy days together before my human showed up again to take me home.

Almost right away I knew I felt physically different to how I usually do. Was it that I'd been away from home and from my human, or was it the experience of mating? All I know is that something in me had changed and it kept right on changing. I didn't feel my usual self at all and I let my human know all about it.

Over the next weeks I felt a bit sick at times, but I was also really hungry. Seriously hungry. Good job I'd started on a high calorie diet just before I met my fella. I gotta tell ya, for a normally streamlined babe, over the weeks I piled on weight until I was over 3 kilos.

The last few weeks were the hardest of all. I could not get comfy and none of my favourite spots were quite right to get the rest I needed. Worst of all was that I couldn't curl up and suckle my skin as I sometimes do. Yes, I know it's baby-ish, but it feels so nice and besides I don't do it in front of anyone but my human when I am in full on purr mode.

I suddenly got a rash all over me so I took a trip to the vet. Because I could not so late into my pregnancy take tablet treatment there were not many options open to me. But imagine my face when he prescribed more baths - every third day. I was NOT happy with that. I know as a Sphynx that I have to have baths and when it is just one every  8-10 days I can put up with it, but this amount of baths was ridiculous! Everytime I heard water turn on in the bathroom I tried to hide (with this barrel belly!) ... most of the time it wasnt on for me but for my human. But I was on high alert. At least she managed to keep the soaping up with the special shampoo and wash off down to minutes...

To add insult to injury I also had a real bad tummy too.

Frankly,  wanted this whole thing to be over.

As we got to days 63 onward I had started to pace about the house and sometimes I was compelled to try to dig - hard and fast just as if I wanted to bury something. I ripped into a new bed I'd been bought and literally was shredding it with my claws. I knew doing it was making a hell of a mess but I just had to keep doing it. Like I said, no one tells you what to expect.

Next thing I knew was that during the early hours of day 64 I'd woke up feeling a little uncomfortable....there's no other way to put it, I had a feeling like I'd wet myself.  Can you imagine how embarrassed I was??? I did what I could to clear it up and bless her, my human helped and was really accommodating to my quirks over these odd days... but when after a time nothing had changed she called the vet. After describing my symptoms the vet wanted to see me right away. It was blue lights (well it wasn't, but you get what I mean)

I'm a popular girl at the vet and with the calling "Noodle's here" I was whipped in to see Emily. I looked at her with my pleading eyes which I hoped to god said "Do Something" . Thankfully she understood.

10 minutes later, forms signed, I was being given medicine and went right off to sleep. When I woke up I felt woozy and had an almighty cut down my belly, but was told by a veterinary nurse human that it was all over. It was indeed, as I was not pregnant any more.

An now I am a mum.

I'd wanted a natural birth at home with my human. We wanted to do it the old fashioned way. OK, so a water birth was not in my birth plan (not after all those enforced baths recently) but I had places laid out to nest and my human was there to offer her support. It just didn't work out that way (this time.)..

I have one kitten, a daughter. And as a new mum I am learning on the job. No manuals and no one to ask. Just me, my kitten and my human. She is being pretty good actually....I've had hot towels regularly pressed onto my sore belly and chest which really, really helps and eases the pain of milk excess and my operation wound especially since  for some reason my kitten thinks it needs to suckle right there.... I hope it doesn't think it is getting back in there! Sweet girl, she has a permanent blood encrusted nose and muzzle.

There should have been other babies -  the vet says there were signs there had been others and I know that my human would have liked there to be more and is disappointed in this outcome, especially because surgery cost so much... but she looks really happy to have me home fit and well and is always congratulating me on doing a good job.

Natural instincts are driving me....(maybe this is why no manual?).. my daughter mews and I roll onto my back giving her unfettered access to my onboard feeding station. The feeding thing has not come easy... for one thing my daughter is blind and cannot open her eyes yet and two, since I have no hair and all my skin has the same feel all over she struggles it seems to find the teat.

Her suck too has been very weak. Luckily we went to the vet again for a check up after 48 hours and the nurses advised my human to start supplement feeding and this has helped no end... in just a few hours things became so much easier for me, my daughter and my human. My baby soon began to feed from me and fill her tummy without any human help and I seemed to have developed a need to lick her back end like mad to clean her up thus encouraging her to poo and wee so she doesn't need nappies like human babies apparently do. It sounds gross I know but it's what us cats do,  its just how it is - so deal with it!

So my baby is now 5 days old and has grown twice her original size already. Things happen fast in pregnancy and in the after birth development too

You want to see her... ok.... hold on a moment...

Taken at the vet following my op!

Small in my human's hand.

Home on her BIRTH day.

This is me just out from theatre. See how drugged up my eyes look? My kitten was zonked right out and took a lot of encouragement to get going at first.

Look at those sharp little claws. Over the coming days they were not pristine white but like her nose and muzzle became blood covered as she kept suckling into my stitched wound.