# Newborn Kittens and Heartbreak



## Fear (May 7, 2014)

Putting this here for my kitten Momo, who I only knew for a short time...

I was staying at my grandmother's house for a while last summer while we were looking for a place to live. I was a few months pregnant then and I think that's where I felt my daughter's first few kicks. Needless to say, I was a hormonal mess the whole time I was there. On top of that, my husband (then fiance) was on a string of illnesses ranging from a tooth with a dead nerve to a sinus infection that put him in bed for almost a week. It wasn't the funnest time. 
But what was fun were the cats there. So many cats. And one of them was quite pregnant. Luna had belonged to a man who was previously renting one of the rooms in that house. I sympathized with her condition and did what I could to get close to her and make friends. After she got comfortable having me around, eventually she would let me pet her, and then I would put my hand on her tummy and feel the kittens move around. She was so big, we all thought she was about to pop when in truth she was still about two weeks away from delivering.
When the day finally came, we were in the living room and I had just broken one of my favorite necklaces. We heard kitten cries and all rushed into the back bedroom, where Luna was with two kittens. One was busy suckling and the other had just been born and was still all slimy but was clean enough to breathe. Luna had moved away from the newer of the two kittens to clean herself up and the blind little thing was wobbling around trying to find her mother's warmth. I took a nearby shirt and scooted the poor jellybean back up to Luna; she gave it a few licks as it began to suckle.
Luna's labor progressed through the rest of the day and into the night. There were a total of seven kittens born, three brown tabbies (some with white) and four black and white kittens. The second kitten, who I decided to call Momo, along with some of the other B&W kittens, had a stumpy tail and extra thumb claws. She would suck her thumb in her sleep! Me and my sisters ended up picking out kittens that matched the order we were born in, ironically. I would sit for hours next to the kittens as they nursed, entranced by their grunting, wiggly little bodies. 
Since Momo was the runt, she would get pushed off of her nipple rather easily. One of the kittens died shortly after birth, and with six kittens and six nipples there was plenty to go around, so I would just move her to another nipple. Luna didn't seem to mind the interference, though whenever someone picked up a kitten she would try to continue to lick it as they held it. I was glad she didn't get aggressive.
About a week later, Luna began showing signs of an illness that killed her previous litter of kittens. Kittens began dying, and I got paranoid and took Momo and her brother into my care, feeding them with a bottle and kitten formula every three hours, "diapering" them, and keeping them warm. Her eyes were open by then, and she would fall asleep purring on my chest when I would pick her up and spend time with her. I couldn't keep myself off of her. 
When the surviving kittens were about two weeks old, we had to leave my grandmother's house to take care of some things out of state where we used to live. The night after we got into the hotel, we received a message from my mother that we wouldn't be able to stay there anymore. Everyone except my little sister blocked us, so I asked her if she could take care of Momo for me while we were homeless. She agreed, and we bumped around from hotel to hotel with no other family who would take us in. I wanted so badly to drive up to my grandmother's house and pick up Momo, but we barely had enough money to get by and none of our hotels were pet friendly. Weeks later, just as I thought things were getting patched up with my mother and sister, I came to find out that my sister had effectively claimed Momo, had renamed her, etc and of course had no intention of giving her back. I was livid, I had never felt so betrayed in my life. The most unsettling thing was that her previous kitten who she was "so attached to", she ended up selling to a friend. I am still upset about this to this day, this was worse to me than when they kicked me out, pregnant. And people wonder why I have so many trust issues...
My sister and mother ended up moving out of my grandmother's house, and of course Momo got left behind. Before I could get up there, she disappeared after someone previously attempted to steal her from my grandmother's house. We are unsure what end she met, I don't even know when it happened as all of my info was second hand and no one bothered to tell me except my husband once he found out. I checked local shelters from the internet and found nothing. I'd like to think she is still alive out there somewhere, though. Maybe she even has a couple kittens of her own, and maybe my great-great-grandchildren will own some of her descendents (Anyone selfish enough to steal someone's cat surely wouldn't get it fixed.) It's unlikely, but it's how I've been able to come to terms with the fact that she's out of my life
That's pretty much the last I heard of her. I am still upset at my family for pulling that on us, and it took a long while before I felt comfortable enough to bring another cat into the family. I posted this here instead of in the "rainbow bridge" section because I still have that hope that she's okay out there and enjoying life. 
If you took the time to read this rant-ish post, thank you!


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## Valentine's Heart (Mar 18, 2011)

Thank you for posting and sharing. Little creatures really do touch our lives!


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Fear, It is always the ones, that we don't know what happened to, that haunt us the most...
I am so sorry...
Hugs and Prayers...


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## spirite (Jul 31, 2012)

My goodness. I'm so sorry for what you had to go through! Pregnant, taking care of a tiny kitten, with nowhere to stay, and a sister who steals your kitty, and then leaves the kitty behind when she leaves...

Not knowing what happened is just so hard, but I think you have a lot of reasons to be optimistic about Momo. She was sweet enough that your sister didn't want to relinquish him, and that someone else tried to steal him, so there's a good possibility that she found a home.


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