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Posts: 2640 · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:38 pm

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My Life as a Midwife

Brian Baker

I used to lead two separate lives. In one, I took advantage of my six-foot frame and three-hundred-plus pounds of brawn to earn an adequate living as a bouncer. I broke up fights, and, occasionally, had to throw a punch or two. In the ten years that I pursued this profession, I had my nose broken no less than six times. My knuckles will never be a normal size again. I had a minor reputation as a very tough guy.

Then there was my other life—my secret life, in which I served as a midwife for pregnant cats. Imagine, if you will, an outsized, middle-aged man coaching tired and cranky female cats through the pain of childbirth. I have always suspected that I do this because I was unable to be present at the births of my stepchildren and my grandchildren, but that’s for my therapist and me to find out.

My split life started when my first cat, Bacall, got herself pregnant before I could afford to have her spayed. She was expecting kittens around the time of my birthday. I arranged for my friend (and future wife) Janet to watch Bacall while I spent that weekend at a conference. Like many conferences I have attended, there was much talk late into the night, and, as a result, I had not gotten a lot of sleep. During the eight-hour drive back from the conference, I was getting more and more tired. All I wanted to do was to get home and go to bed. So, of course, about an hour before I got home, Bacall went into labor.

I pause here for character identification. I was an exhausted, surly and totally unpleasant representative of humanity at this point. My first impulse was to go to bed and let Bacall handle the birth by herself. After all, it was a most natural thing, and her motherly instincts would kick in, wouldn’t they? Of course they would. But, somehow, I found myself sitting on my bed, my favorite blanket under Bacall, while I rubbed her ears and back during labor. She gave birth to four healthy kittens, two of whom still share my home today. I was so pleased with her that I sat up half the night trying to get her to eat and drink something.

And so my life as an animal rescuer began.

Unfortunately, the kittens kept coming because pregnant strays kept finding their way to our doorstep. There have been seven mothers-to-be in our house since that night, and I have participated in the births of all twenty-six kittens. I am a sucker for the process, even though, these days, I spend most of my time trying to avoid the whole situation—by convincing people to show some responsibility and have their pets fixed before they can produce offspring!

After Bacall’s midnight delivery, the next litter born in our house was Baby’s. Baby was a stray who came to stay with us on Christmas day in 1996. Her four kittens, born in January 1997, actually arrived while I slept, but I participated in the birth by giving up my thirty-five-dollar white dress shirt as the birthing bed. Baby must have known that I had only worn the shirt once, and that it was in the laundry basket so I could wash it and wear it to work again.

Shan Li was a calico who came to us when a friend of our son’s found her wandering the streets. She was dirty, undernourished and traumatized, as well as de-clawed and pregnant! Five weeks after her arrival, she gave birth to five kittens we ended up calling The Pile—four females and one male. We named the single male Watson, and ended up keeping him because he developed an eye infection and needed “special attention.” (This is the excuse we almost always use when my wife and I have fallen in love with a kitten and decide that it can’t leave.)

Pregnant cats kept showing up in our lives. Once we had two cats—Tiffany and Lenore—deliver litters within twelve hours of each other! When Tiffany ultimately rejected her litter, Lenore came to the rescue. Lenore was a tiny cat with a constant harassed look upon her face. After giving birth to her own four kittens, she then took in Tiffany’s abandoned three and nursed all seven to health with some assistance (and feedings) from us. By the time the kittens were weaned, she was exhausted. Lenore was the only cat I ever thought was glad to be spayed. We were able to find homes for all seven kittens, and for the mothers as well.

We were especially pleased with the home we found for our beleaguered ex-super-mom. Today, Lenore, aka Lenny, is living a quiet, reflective life in a local retirement home for Franciscan nuns. The good sisters offer prayers every day for our efforts; sometimes, I think it is the only reason we are able to keep doing what we do.

I don’t work as a bouncer anymore, but I’m still delivering kittens. We took in another cat just a few weeks ago, and—no surprise—she’s pregnant. Any day now, probably in the middle of the night (of course), I’ll be playing midwife again. I enjoy the experience, but I wish with all my being that I didn’t have to do it. It gets tiring looking for homes for healthy cats with nowhere to go. My wife and I always take the kittens to the vet, getting them altered and inoculated with their first shots before we start looking for homes for them—we want to make sure that we don’t perpetuate the problem! This process costs us a few hundred dollars each time, and our vet always lectures about being such soft touches. Still, I’m sure that we’ll continue to do it in the future. As long as there are pregnant cats who need help, I am willing to play midwife.