The floor baby story

December 19th, 2019.

It was an interesting day, my brother came over for a visit and showed me some card tricks. During his visit, the pregnant tuxedo cat Oryo was very chatty. Perhaps she would pop soon, so I showed her to the nest multiple times.

Before getting pregnant, Oryo was a wild child, always escaping outdoors whenever possible...and when she did escape, she would always do multiple laps around the property until one of us was able to scoop her up and bring her inside. She wasn;t able to be fixed due to money problems.

And during her pregnancy, she became incredibly territorial. So much so, that one of our other cats was afraid to come downstairs. She'd chase our other cats away, she must've been incredibly anxious at the time.

Back to the aforementioned day, I reassured Oryo that the nest we built for her was safe and secure; she could give birth in peace. Maybe she wanted me to be close for when she popped, so just in case, I laid down a clean towel by my desk.

Later during the day, I believe I was tending to my chickens, and when I came back inside... I heard a peculiar noise.

Was it my shoe that squeaked?

Then I heard the noise again. My heart began racing.

I traveled upstairs, and right outside the bathroom, in a puddle of fluid... 

was a tiny newborn kitten. I gasped, then my mom saw too.

I was instructed to wrap the baby in a towel and bring it downstairs to the nest, while my mom went looking for Oryo. Apparently Oryo leaked more fluid in my sisters room...was she unsure what was happening?

I lured her downstairs with the bundled up kitten, and got her into the nest for the rest of her birthing to proceed. The next few hours I was utterly focused, I shifted into widwife mode.

After getting her situated, Oryo howled, and out came baby #2.

 I should note that the first two kittens were born with an ombre coat, called a fever coat. It's caused by high stress. We didn't know this at first, we just thought it was a unique and beautiful fur color.

Oryo got to cleaning her babies...and the birthing towel, so we repeatedly pointed her babies out to her. Chemicals and hormones really mess with the brain, so, I guess I would've done the same thing if I were a cat giving birth.

Soon, there was baby #3, announced with a howl. The problem was... baby #3 wasn't fully out yet, mama was still grooming her babies. That's when I washed my hands and put disposable gloves on, and I'm really proud of myself for that.

I didn't want to cause any tearing, or disruption to the birthing process, so after ensuring that baby #3's airway was clear, I attached it to a nipple so mama would notice. Eventually she was pushed all the way out and cleaned up.

Mama Oryo gave birth to a tabby tuxie with a bowlcut, a tabby, and a tuxedo.

And raising the little family was a magical, incredible experience I was honored to be a part in ❤

The tabby and tuxie girls were adopted together, and the bowlcut boy we kept.

We named him Hallway! He's a little stinker, cuddlebug, and troublemaker...just like his mommy!

Thank you for reading, I love telling this story ❤