Fibo my cat

My cat, Fibonacci, was rescued at 3wks, along with her brother, Walter (who, for the record, I did not get to name.) FiB (pronounced liked Phoebe, which we call her for short) and Walter were rejected by their mother, malnourished, and flea ridden. We cleaned them up, brought them home, we bottle fed them, taught them how to eat and helped them use the litter box, and so on. We loved them. We also, planned ahead from day one, to get them spayed and neutered.

Because these surgeries, especially for female sexed cats, can be expensive, we reached out to our local pet rescue and managed to get a "scholarship" from their funds to pay for the surgeries, the only catch being, we couldn't get appointments until the babies would be about 7 months, but, we thought we were safely inside the window, falsely believing they would not become sexually mature until 9 months or later. Well, fast forward to ONE WEEK before Walter's scheduled surgery, with FiB's scheduled the following month, and FiB entered her first estrus, and IMMEDIATELY became impregnated by her brother (who was still diligently neutered the next week.) However, we didn't know this had happened. Walter had showed almost no interest in his shrieking, estrus consumed sister, and we thought that he was not yet sexually mature. So we neutered him as planned, and intended to go on with FiB the following month.

By then, however, her condition became obvious. This raised many concerns. I was terrified that a 7month old kitten would not survive a spaying while pregnant, and we decided to let her carry the kittens to term. I was terrified the incest kittens were going to die upon being born. I had known one other person to have a cat be impregnated young via incest, and the story was horrific. That cat had 5 kittens, four of which died in labor, the 5th she refused to care for, and was entirely in the care of her humans from the moment it was born. Miraculously that kitten did live, but it never got any bigger than 2lbs, and had obvious genetic shortcomings. I felt sure my kitten's kittens would face the same fate, but if she survived, I would deal with the horror.

Her pregnancy was stressful, not for her, but for her guilt ridden humans. The day she gave birth, however, was filled with more bizarre circumstances than we ever could have imagined.

For one, my previously docile, sweet, dog-loving, 8lb cat, became VIOLENTLY aggressive towards my 75lb dog, for no reason at all. We had to separate them, because FIB would attack the dog every time she saw her, and though our dog, Luci could have killed her easily, she never fought back, she simply got very sad. They had to be separated, for Luci's safety. Once I removed the dog, FiB began mewing furiously for my attention, rubbing up against me, then darting down the stairs, toward my bedroom. The first few times she did this, I did not follow her down. But, when I didn't, she'd dart back up and repeat the process. Eventually I took the hint, and followed her to my room. She jumped on my bed and mewed again. I sat down, pet her for moment, then left, she chased me, mewing, until I followed her again. Once I stayed on the bed for a two minutes, she immediately began to go into labor. I tried my best to remain calm. I was alone int he house, at the time, frantically googling worst possible scenarios, and what to do if her babies lived, and she rejected them . I read that, because she was so young, and because her mother had abandoned her, the chance that she would reject them was extremely high. I tried to stay calm. Coaching myself on how to clean the babies to ensure they could breathe, on how to feed them if she wouldn't (a topic I had already researched a lot, with kitten milk already chilling in the fridge upstairs.) I braced myself for the sad reality of many kittens born dead, or kittens born barely alive that would not survive. But all of my preparation and fear turned out to be unnecessary. FiB gave birth, in about 20 easy minutes, to two healthy kittens. she immediately tended to them, cleaning them, nursing them. When she heard a noise outside, she threw her body over them protectively. She was already a better parent than her mom had been.

A little known fact about cats, is that they see their people as big, clumsy, not very good cats, but they love us. Cats are also know to communally raise their young in the wild. So FiB saw me as a coparent of her newborn babies. She let me pick them up minutes after being born, and seemed relieved to have me tending to them.

One kitten was born a carbon copy of his mother. Same black coat, same white dots, he looked just like her, but smaller, he also developed a very playful "dog like" personality, so we named him Phido (pronounced like Fido...Fibonocci......PHIdo... heh...heh) Her other kitten, whom we named Voxel (she was adopted by my sister, whose other cat was already named Pixel, so we named the kitten Voxel to match the theme) despite being fathered by her mother's brother, who was also a black and white, short haired, tuxedo cat, Voxel, much to my surprise, was born mostly white, with a few black splotches, and very long hair! Given the upsettingly small potential for genetic diversity, we were pretty shocked to see one kitten look almost nothing like her parents! Both kittens are shockingly healthy, and now much larger than their mother, whose growth we think was stunted by her young pregnancy, and the fact that, not only did she not reject her babies too young, she actually nursed them for a full 14wks! They were actually eating solid food, and still occasionally nursing.

It was a wild experience, that I hope I never repeat. FiB, and both her babies, have all been spayed/neutered, so now the whole little cat family has been properly desexed. This experience, above all else, really taught me, to make sure you spay and neuter your pets early! Most pregnancy stories are not as lucky as FiB's.