And then there were two

Inigo was adopted last week at the Henrico Humane Society adoption stand. Hooray!

I brought Westley and Buttercup home and they have been released from the cage and are spending time in the general population now. I figure it's only fair to them. They have really gotten used to us and the other cats, and they should be able to run around and get exercise.

It's been equally wonderful that they are opening up even more now that they can be a little footloose. Westley likes to come up and sleep on the bed with us at night and both of they are absolute purr machines. Westley also never misses an opportunity to snuggle and make biscuits on one of us. Such a lover!

On another wonderful note, we are buying a beautiful new house that has a 3.25 acre lot. We'll be having the safety inspection next week and I plan to do some measuring in the back yard to see how much cat fencing I need for the outdoor cats.

I'm also looking into the possibilities for a shed as shelter for them. I think I'll end up finding someone to build one for us, as that will probably be way less expensive than buying one outright. Definitely doing a little pricing.

All in all, very exciting times ahead. :)

The kittens

Here is shy Inigo. I had to keep my hand on her to keep her from running and hiding!











Here is darling Buttercup.














Last but not least, handsome Westley.












Yesterday our little trio got spayed/neutered and the final round of shots given.
There is no adoption stand this weekend because of the holiday, so they will have to wait until next weekend.

Hopefully they will have good luck despite the overwhelming number of kittens currently up for adoption.

Cat update

A few things...

Whenever kittens are very young, sometimes it can be hard to tell if they are boys are girls. I can't say that I have ever guessed incorrectly....until now.

Inigo is actually a little girl! She was, at first, the biggest of the 3 by far. After checking the first time, I didn't give it another thought. Then, the last time we were at the vet, we made the surprising discovery that he was a she in truth.

Sadly, the only other girl in The Princess Bride is Miracle Max's wife, Valerie. In keeping with the theme, I think we'll just keep her named Inigo. I'm sure whomever adopts her will change her name anyway.

Our vet checkups have been a little frustrating. They have had some eye infections and a little upper respiratory infection. The first time we went back for the second round of booster shots, Buttercup was fine but Westley and Inigo were sick, so no shots for them.

The next visit, this last Monday, Westley and Inigo were great and Buttercup now had the creeping crud. At least we are all in the same place with vaccinations now.

I'm taking them again this coming Monday and hopefully everyone will be well and ready for spaying/neutering. Then, once they have recovered, it's time to go up for adoption.

I'm hoping for the best, but there are so many kittens out there now. The shelters are absolutely bursting with kittens needing homes.

As for Alice, she has her own bit of issues going on. They told me when they spayed her that she had a small infection in her mouth. They gave her some antibiotics and we hoped for the best.

As of late, she hasn't been eating as much, and I can tell her mouth is bothering her in some way. Of course, there's no way I can look at it. She doesn't have any interest in letting me get ahold of her head and poke around, so it's hard to know how bad it's gotten. I'm hoping that I can get some liquid antibiotics for her on Monday and see if there's a chance I can get her to take some.

I would really hate to lose her after all we've been through.

Alice gets her belly shaved

Well, I finally caught Miss Alice and got her fixed - hallelujah!

I had tried to catch her before, but she was always too wise to the traps. I knew that I'd have to find another way, and when a medium size wire cage was advertised on Craigslist for cheap, I knew I had found my means to the end of the kitten factory.

I've been feeding in the morning lately, and not in my old manner of giving everyone a plate and waiting with them. Now I just slop out the food into the dry food bowls and they have a free-for-all.

I hate feeding them this way and I know it's not a fair deal for them either. The piggy boys gorge on the lions share of the food. However, I've really been too tired at night to do it the old way.

This started when I started getting pregnant, because by the end of the day I am spent. With a shift to an earlier start time for Brian's work hours, I may start feeding them in the old way, just early in the morning. We'll see how that works out.

But I digress...

I knew I'd have to snag Alice in the morning when I was feeding them. There were no other times she would let me pet her, let alone pick her up. She couldn't have food after midnight on the night before the surgery, so getting her on that morning was also out.

With this new cage, I felt ok with keeping her confined for the entire day. She had plenty of room to sleep and eat. I put a litter box in there but she had no idea what to do with it, the poor baby.

I had also gotten the "ok" from one of the vets I use to bring her in for this surgery. They knew beforehand that she was semi-feral and would probably be a handful.

Also, this surgery, while affordable, would not be free of charge like it would be if I were able to trap her and take her to the Richmond SPCA. However, this was going to be worth every penny to me just to ensure that I would have no more batches of kittens.

We did have our last batch to deal with, though. Alice had 3 little darlings, two boys and a girl. I named them Westley, Buttercup and Inigo.

After much thought, I decided to ask a friend of mine who I had previously helped with getting her cats fixed and re-homing some kittens. They are staying there for now and will go to the vet for a second round of boosters a week from today.

Hopefully, they will all be over the 2lb mark which makes them big enough to spay/neuter. After that, it's off to the adoption events and a forever home.

Then I'll get to do it all over again with another litter that my friend's cat has. We have to get that mama fixed, too, but she isn't feral, thankfully.

Not as planned

I had my first ultrasound last Friday.

The ultrasound technician said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. With each second that ticked by, my hope dwindled.

She could see the gestational sac, but there was no baby inside. The condition, I later found out, is called a blighted ovum. The sac is formed, but the baby never grows.

She offered me two alternatives, to either do blood work to see if my hormone levels were dropping, or wait 2 weeks for another ultrasound. I chose the blood work.

As it turned out, I didn't need either. I started bleeding today. And that was that.

We'll try again as soon as we can. I'm giving it the duration of my 40th year, which begins in mid-July. If I continue to miscarry through the entire next year, then I will resign myself to being satisfied with our one, beautiful daughter.

Happier news next time. I have a cat and kittens story, but I'm not up to telling it.

My Leave of Absence

In the last several months, I have experienced a number of life-changing events. The kind of things that make you feel like living your life in a rut of regularity isn't so bad after all, perhaps.

I'll start with the least complicated...

Brian and I have been trying to have another baby. Sadly, I've miscarried twice in the last 9 months. Getting pregnant was not the problem, just the staying pregnant part.

The first time, I found out at my first ultrasound that the baby had stopped growing at 7 weeks. I had a D&C, which is a surgical procedure to remove the tissue from my uterus.

The second time, I just straight out miscarried with the heavy bleeding and heart-gashing misery that all brings when it happens a second time.

My OB had me do a bunch of blood work that came back with the following two points that were out of the norm:

- I don't absorb Folic Acid like most people do. Prenatal vitamins have 850mcg. In order to absorb at least that amount, I take 4mg a day.

- I have a very mild case of Lupus Anticoagulant. This may or may not be causing micro blood clots in the placenta. I am taking baby aspirin for this once a day, which may or may not help.

I'm also pregnant again, about 6 weeks, which is wonderful and a little nerve-wracking. Timing was good and bad, which you'll understand later.

I am happy that conception is not a problem. I'd much rather have it this way than not be able to conceive at all.

The other, more catastrophic issue is that my wonderful Mother-in-law passed away almost a month ago, after 3 months of trips to the hospital for various issues.

This has easily been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to deal with in my entire life.

She was truly the family matriarch and a beautiful, funny, loving, incredible woman. She experienced a difficult life growing up, from having an alcoholic father whom she adored passing at a young age, to a mother who didn't want her and her sister.

She and her sister ended up living with her grandmother, and in her words, "She was a mean ol' bitch!"

She started taking care of her own needs and providing for herself when she was still in school. This extended into her adult years where she prided herself on being self-sufficient. She hated to ask for even the smallest of favors, not wanting to put anyone out.

She divorced from her abusive husband, the father of her sons, not once but twice. He may have been the only man she ever fully loved with her entire heart. It was only the beatings that kept them apart. She refused to let him lay his hands on her ever again.

She married once again for a short time to another man that didn't treat her well, and they think even tried to kill her.

After him, she said never again. Never would she marry or share a house with another man. And she didn't.

When I met her the first time, she was pleasant but a little reserved. You could tell she was checking me out, seeing if I was good enough for her baby boy.

You see, she was no stranger to miscarriage, either. She had lost 5 babies at various stages of pregnancy between the birth of her older son and the birth of her younger son, my husband. The doctors couldn't even tell her why she lost the ones that were farther along.

My husband, Brian, changed all that. The doctors told her she would never carry another baby to term after the repeated miscarriages. Then, after remarrying her abusive husband for the second time, she got pregnant again.

This time, the pregnancy went full term and produced a beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed boy. She said he was her "miracle baby."

Now, thirty-some years later I sat at the table with her and she was going to make damn sure that I was good enough for her son, her miracle baby.

It wasn't until much later, after I moved from New York to Virginia, that she knew I was serious and really did love her son. On our first meeting I told her that was something I would never do.

We talked daily on the phone about the local news, gas prices, little unimportant trivial talk that you might not even remember five minutes after you hung up.

She was a mother to me. She was an ear that listened when I needed and a shoulder to cry on. She was one of my best friends.

I miss her every day, so very much.

Hurry up and wait

Let me quickly state that the last 2 months have been significantly crappy on a number of levels.

I am trying to get myself back to blogging on a regular basis, but due to issues that I will delve into later, I just haven't been able to get back on the horse yet.

I am going to make this a priority. No really, I mean that. Really!