Day 7 – Sunday 29^th August

 

It’s such a pleasure watching The Cocktails grow and begin to change.  All cords are off now, and it’s just possible to see the beginning of eyes opening on some of the babies.  I think Pegu may be our first child to open her eyes.

 

Bronx continues to grow at an incredible rate, and already his points are showing colour – meaning he will be a seal point.  The colour on the two Siamese girls isn’t obvious yet, and they do have different nose leather to each other.  So, Mai Tai may well be a red point.  Pegu I am just not sure of yet.  If she is not a red point, she must be a tortoiseshell point.  The question is just which base colour!  It could be chocolate, cinnamon or possibly fawn.

 

We have individual photos today and everyone’s weight gains for the first week.

 

Baby	Birth Weight	Today’s Weight	Week One Gain
Mai Tai	90g	168g	78g
Daiquiri	86g	178g	92g
Pegu	94g	170g	76g
Georgia Peach	81g	152g	71g
Tom Collins	94g	175g	81g
Mojito	86g	165g	79g
Bronx	104g	189g	85g

Mai Tai

Daiquiri

 Pegu

Georgia Peach

Tom Collins

Mojito


Bronx

 

Day 5 – Friday 27^th August

 

Today’s entry is mainly pictures.  I popped home from work at lunchtime with my friend Jenney, and we managed to get some photos while there was daylight in the room.

 

Despite the whole point of our excursion being to visit the babies, Zahi was not to be left out, and spent the whole time reclining on Jenney’s lap demanding attention.  Luckily Jen is as besotted as the rest of us with him!

 

Umbilical cords are nearly all off now, and the babies are very reactive to strokes and tickles.  When they are lying on their backs with their beautiful pink tummies on display, they stretch like little yoga practitioners when they are tickled.

I woke up to the delightful sound of a nest-full of tinies peeping away and having slightly heated discussions about who was feeding exactly where.

Phoenix Is of course spending most of her time in the box with her babies, but her food, water and litter tray are all close by, and in view of the nest.  She also still likes to come out for some cuddles and adult conversation.

I did get weights today – which did involve sitting and waiting for each baby in turn to be on a break from feeding!  Phoenix is really quite tolerant of me briefly borrowing her children to pop them on the scales, but if a baby cries during the process, she is straight over to remind me who’s boss, and get baby back to its rightful place.  I was absolutely thrilled to discover everyone had gained weight in their first twenty four hours.

Names have now been decided, and are as follows –

Birth Time	Colour	Sex	Name
16:11	Siamese	Female	Mai Tai
16:43	Red Spotted	Female	Daiquiri
17:02	Siamese	Female	Pegu
17:35	Cinnamon Tortie	Female	Georgia Peach
17:55	Havana	Male	Tom Collins
18:33	Red Spotted	Female	Mojito
19:11	Siamese	Male	Bronx

As always, sexes are subject to the Sex Change Fairy.  The colour of Georgia Peach will also need to be confirmed, but she is definitely paler than Bronx, so I am going with Cinnamon for the time being.

Birth – Monday 23^rd August

Phoenix kept us waiting one day past her due date, but that’s fine – she was obviously making sure her buns were cooked!

This time we had Tony’s niece Megan to help out.  I was very pleased that Phoenix obliged by finishing labour before Meg had to go home on Monday evening – she had been waiting with us since Saturday afternoon!

In the end it was a very civilised time of day to go into labour.  Contractions started around 15:45, and by 16:11 baby number one was with us.  Over the next three hours Phoenix gave us another big litter of seven babies.  After the three babies from the first side, Phoenix had a snack and cleaned her new children before getting on with side two.

Every placenta followed its respective kitten, and Phoenix ate them all, doing all cords herself too.  By the time the last two babies arrived, Phoenix was understandably getting tired, so we helped with breaking the sac from their faces.  I say ‘we’ – in fact Megan took delivery of the last two on her own, while I just watched.

It wasn’t long before all babies were transformed into clean, fluffy little people and lined up neatly at the milk bar.

All weights were fantastic, especially given the size of the litter, and Phoenix is once again straight into Super Mum mode.

The kittens even had their first visitors before they were a day old.  Emily (mum of Chai from The Teas litter) and her sister Jo came to wet the babies’ heads and congratulate Phoenix on such a fantastic job.

Here is a selection of the photos from the birth.