Calling Dr. Lorenzo, OB/Midwife, to the kitchen cupboard STAT!

Last night after dinner when I settled in for the night Ashleigh came and layed down on my chest. This is very unusual. Ashleigh is the lone wolf. She never wants to sit on me or with me. She doesn't even really like to be petted and here she was laying, splayed out across my chest. I rubbed her pregnant belly and was taken aback by how hard it felt. Ashleigh rolled on to her back and let her head fall, encouraging me to rub some more. I watched as the kittens tumbled around inside her crowded womb and then they stopped moving. Then Ashleigh's belly tightened and her hind legs kicked. She was having a contraction. Wow. Was she going to attempt to give birth to her babies whilst laying across my chest? Not my idea of the perfect delivery location...but I didn't want to move this poor creature at such a tenuous time. The contraction only lasted for a second and Ashleigh got up, walked around in a circle and put her self right back down on my chest. About 15 minutes later she had another contraction. She let out a tiny little "mew" and then she dozed off. After her snooze she got up and wandered around. I had opened the living room closet door thinking that that would lend her some privacy if that's what she wanted. It took her a while but she did go in there and Lorenzo was right behind her. I decided to just let them hang out in the closet. If Ashleigh didn't want Lorenzo in there I'm sure she'd have no problem letting him know to get the heck out. After a few minutes of quiet I heard some rumblings in the closet. I figured they were probably fighting and I was going to have to physically take Lorenzo away from the fascinating goings on. When I opened the closet door I saw Ashleigh hunkered down in the corner and Lorenzo right next to her. They were both playing with the cord to a space heater that was on a shelf above them. I rolled up the cord so that they wouldn't pull the heater down on their heads and then I figured that Ashleigh's contractions must have just been braxton hicks and that she was feeling much better now. Most women in the throes of labor don't take time out to play with dangling toys.

Ashleigh came out of the closet and just wandered around. She stopped to let Andrew pet her and that is when I knew for certain that something was up. Ashleigh hates Andrew with a raging passion. All he has to do is look at her and she hisses at him, and tried to claw his eyes out, so for her to actually allow him to touch her really let me know that something was up. For the next couple of hours Ashleigh walked around, ran around, layed around....so I figured that it was all a false alarm and allowed myself to doze off on the couch.

I woke up because I heard Andrew talking. He was down on the floor in the kitchen trying to get Lorenzo out of the cupboard underneath the sink. I asked him what was going on and he told me that Ashleigh had had 1 kitten and Lorenzo wouldn't leave it alone. I've heard too many horror stories about male cats and kittens so I had Andrew wrastle with Lorenzo and get him out of the delivery room. We layed some towels down for Ashleigh and took all of the toxic items out of the cupboard then let her continue the birthing of her babies.

We could not keep Lorenzo out of the delivery room so I decided to let him in and just stay right there with them so I could make sure he wasn't being a nuisance or attempting to harm the babies. The minute I let him back in there he went right over and started to lick Ashleigh's head. She licked him back and then they both licked the brand new baby. Lorenzo got a little more voracious and I thought he was losing his mind but on closer inspection I discovered that he was biting on the umbilical cord. Lorenzo was being the midwife! As each kitten was being born, Lorenzo would continue to lick Ashleigh's head then help stimulate the kitten and get them out of their birthing sac.

I didn't want to intrude on them during such a difficult time but you know me...I had to document this with my camera so here we go:




Yes, Lorenzo is tangled up in the garbage disposal cord. After I took the pictures I unplugged it and wrapped it around a pipe so there is no chance of anyone getting choked.


In the end there were 5 babies. We will now refer to Lorenzo as "Uncle Daddy".