I think my cat is pregnant...

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Okay, first off let’s dispense with all the ‘how can you be so irresponsible as to not get your cat spayed?!! You’re a moron!’ stuff…I’ll take that as a given and I have no defense.

Having said that, I will now proceed to offer my defense.

She’s not now and never was supposed to be ‘my cat’! My son brought her to me as a six week old kitten that he and his gf found wandering in the park. Brought to me because, although my son loves cats, gf is ‘allergic’. (Yes, in quotes 'cuz I am skeptical…but, whatever…) I told him then - ‘I have no money for another animal - you will need to pay the costs of getting her fixed and any subsequent vet bills!’ He never did. That was almost three years ago, son is now in the Army and in Afghanistan and I still have her and no, obviously she was never fixed.

No problem at first. She’s a beautiful cat, closely resembling my old cat Frankie, who died a year ago, so yeah, I got a little sweet on her. Harlequin type, white with tabby/grey splotches and green eyes. For the first year, she was strictly an inside cat. And she’s a very quiet cat, who squeaks rather than meows and even when in heat, is not obnoxiously loud or annoying. She grew to be a very small cat, too, probably no more than six or seven pounds…

The second year she decided she wanted to be an outside cat and perfected the art of darting out between my feet when I was letting the dog out. But I shrugged that off - as long as I was aware of when she was in heat, I could still stay on top of the situation. And I did.

Now she’s almost three. And I think she’s wise to me…maybe she figured out that if she wanted to be able to sneak out when in heat, she needed to shut the F up. Because as far as I could tell, the last time she was in heat, she never got outside (even though a couple of neighborhood toms took to hanging about in our yard…) And she was not able to get outside until a good week after I figured she was ‘over it’ so to speak.

But in the past week, I can’t help but notice that this formerly tiny cat, has become quite fat. Not the pendulous belly of your typical overweight cat, but ‘looks like she swallowed a cantalope’ kind of fat. I suspect that she is pregnant.

Well, I guess time will tell…and now that I’ve confided all this to you guys, I guess I have a moral obligation to figure out how to upload photos…

#2

Photos would be good and maybe a trip to see a veterinarian would be good too.

#3

I’m not a cat expert, but an un-spayed female cat who gets outside at all is GOING to get pregnant. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t.

I’m going to have to give you a kick even though it wasn’t supposed to be your cat - you’ve had her for three years, and she obviously is your cat, and it was your responsibility to have her spayed. Bad cat owner! Bad! :slight_smile:

#4

Who do you suspect? :smiley:

#5

Mrs. Slocombe: “I don’t know *‘oo’s *to blame. But that Persian across the street’s been starin’ at me pussy over the hedge for weeks.”

#6

Well…there have been a couple of strays hanging around lately. I’ve already informed Maddy that if her babies look like the ugly orange tom (that we call ‘Tommy Lee’ - and unfortunately he seems the most persistent), I am going to have to drown them at birth. If, however, they look more like the smoky gray tom (‘Billy Bob’), I may relent and just take them to the humane society…

#7

A friend took in a stray female cat, intending to get her spayed after she delivered her litter.

After a few weeks, she took the cat in to the vet, to make sure everything was ok. Turns out the kitty wasn’t pregnant. She had a pretty major case of some kind of GI tract parasites, like worms or something like that, and her belly was distended as a side effect. (It’s been a while, I don’t remember all the details.) The cat turned out OK in the end, but did need a fair amount of vet care and treatments.

Now, it’s probably much more likely that your cat is indeed pregnant, but I’m just saying a vet trip might be a good idea either way.

#8

If you’re in the Portland area, we’d likely take a couple from you.

#9

If you are joking about this, you REALLY need to come back and make that more explicit. The Dope doesn’t take well to cat abuse, even jokingly.

If you aren’t joking… well. I’ll let the mob deal with you.

#10

I believe that if the pregnancies are not too far along, she can still go to the vet and terminate the kittens + spay her all at once. Call and ask, if that’s a route you feel you might want to take.

#11

If finances are an issue, there Is a really good chance that either the humane society or a cat interest group in you area will help. But, you need to get in touch with them ASAP. If she is pregnant and she’s pregnant enough for you to tell, odds are good she’s within two weeks of birthing kittens.

#12

I agree with the idea of taking her to a vet or seeing if the humane society will spay her even though she is pregnant. I don’t like to see animals die, but there are such a ridiculously high number of unwanted animals out there, it’s really just a question of which kittens die. Either these kittens will die now or other kittens will die because the homes they could have gone to were taken up by this litter. :frowning:
In many places, humane societies offer lower cost spay options than private vets, so I would probably try that route first.

#13

In some areas there are programs that cover the cost of spaying and neutering based on your neighborhood’s income demographics. I lived in one such neighborhood when I had one of my cats spayed- I only had to pay for her pain medication, and even that wasn’t a necessity, so it could have been totally free. And it was done at a regular vet’s office.

#14

A little late for you, but I was given a “noisy” cat by a neighbor years ago. When I went to pick her up, I realized she was in heat. The guy said she’d been like that for several weeks.
I took her to the vet the next day. I was told, by the vet, that indoor, whole queens will go into estrous at closer and closer intervals, until it become continuous, if not allowed to breed or spayed. She may have come out and gone back in in less than a week.

#15

About 18 years ago, I adopted a stray kitten which we named Katie. Katie was beautiful–long, fluffy fur and very loving. About the same time, we also adopted a stray kitten which we named Ailey. (Ailey not so beautiful, but I digress.) Any way, they were both from different places, so we knew they weren’t related. But, they were our first non-fixed cats, and I tried to get them appointments for fixing as soon as I could.

However, Katie grew fat in the mean time. We were going through the local low-cost spay/neuter program at the time, and they assured me that spaying Katie while pregnant wouldn’t be a problem. So, the morning of the surgery, I drop off both cats to be fixed and wait for the phone call to let me know they’re out of surgery.

Later that morning, there was a message of my phone from the vet. “I wanted to let you know that both cats came through the surgery just fine. You can pick them up anytime after 4:00 today. And by the way, Katie is male.”

So, maybe your cat is male and just fat? (Here’s hoping.)

#16

Seconding this unfortunate but necessary idea. Here in Utah, as of last August, kittens were being put down b/c all the shelters were well above capacity. A neighbor ‘couldn’t bear’ to have the pg female she took in spayed, but by the time the litter was 5 weeks old didn’t have the wherewithal to find them homes. She took them all to the closest shelter and learned a few days later mother and kittens were all put down that day. (This after I loaned [turned into donated] her money and supplies to care for the kittens & momma after she took too long to decide on spaying. We no longer speak to each other.)

#17

Unfortunately, I am nowhere near Portlandia! Hopefully, this will not be an issue - if it turns out that she is pregnant, I have already had three people who have expressed a willingness to take a kitten (or two!) None of these are what I would call impetuous or frivolous offers - all three have had or still have cats already and know what they would be getting into…so, I am optimistic for the future prospects of these ‘potential’ kittens.

Perhaps I’m wrong and she’s just fat. But I doubt it - I will give her another month at most and then I will look again for low cost neutering. (and yes, I have looked into this previously and have not found anything within geographical reach - I don’t have a car - that offered spaying for less than $50 - yes, cheap for spaying but expensive in my present financial situation. But I have realized that the risk in a pregnancy has the potential to well exceed that cost, so I might have to just bite the bullet - or dun my son for the cost!)

But it was kind of you to offer… :slight_smile:

#18

Cat pregnancy is 65 days. In case you wanted to know.

There are other, more menacing, reasons for a cat to suddenly become fat. Please, take her to the vet.

#19

If you haven’t been able to come up with $50 in three years to get her spayed, you are not responsible enough to have a cat, nor are you financially capable.

#20

Hey now, cigarettes don’t pay for themselves you know.