I See The World And The World Sees Me: Simca

Meet Simca, our adopted cat. We first met Simca whilst staying in Gramado in a friend´s holiday flat. There were quite a few stray cats that were our neighbours at this time but Simca stood out straight away. She was the quickest to get the sausages that the couple who lived beside would through to them, and was the most friendly. Before we knew it we were friends and i´d often invite her in for a belly rub whilst I watched tv. Our affection for her grew quickly until she officially become a sleep in member of our family.

For a long time we didn´t realise that babies were the cause of her big belly, we thought it was too many sausages! But then we started to feel some little kicks when we rubbed her tummy.

She has quite a small head compared to her body.

In the early hours of the morning Simca jumped on our bed and put her head on my shoulder to wake me up, then when I turned to see her she would jump back down. She did this a few times until I realised that there was something wet on the bed. We thought the poor girl had been trying to tell us she needed to go "peepee" and we just hadn´t got the hint. So I took her outside and closed the door, sat with her and gave her a pat, but she was frantic to get back inside and kept meowing and going up on her hind legs to open the door. She kept licking "herself" which made me suspicious as I didn´t think cats ate their pee. Giving up, hoping she wouldn´t "pee" on the bed again and wondering if maybe it was time for her to give birth, we let her back inside. She jumped back on the bed and kept licking "herself" and then I saw a black little leg making its exit out of Simca! She wanted to give birth on the bed! She hadn´t peed, her water had broken! I took a towel, picked her up, and put her into the newspaper filled box/nest I had made for her and tried to calm her down. She made a desperate leap, attemping to get back onto the bed but I caught her just before a babie was born mid-air. The groans began and Moises and I were terrified! We´d never been mid-wives to a cat before! The first baby came and we watched to make sure she ate the placenta (gross) as Moises read if she didn´´t eat it, there could be complications. I felt her belly and there was still some kicking, so more babies to come. Hours later there was four little wet, blind kittens in the nest feeding from their exhausted mama.