Vet Tells Pet Owner Their Cat Is 'Just Fat' — & Then They Found Kittens In A Drawer
Guess we need a show called "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant: Feline Edition."
MVolodymyr | Shutterstock There's truly nothing cuter than tiny little kittens, and no more exciting part of pet ownership than welcoming a new litter — if you know it's coming, that is. For one pet owner on Reddit, that's not at all how it happened, and it's turned their life into an episode of "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant." You know, except with cats.
The pet owner had no idea their cat was pregnant until they found kittens in a drawer.
In their Reddit post, the cat lover wrote that they frequently rescue cats in their area and always make sure to spay or neuter them. However, their current cat is a newer rescue, and it seems that she had a bit of a secret when they found her at their local coffee shop.
When the Redditor went into their study to do some work, they found some of the wires they kept in a drawer on the floor. When they opened the drawer to put them back, they got a huge surprise — sleeping stowaway kittens!
u/Freneboom | Reddit
Their veterinarian had told them their cat 'might just be fat.' Oops!
Like any conscientious pet owner or rescuer, the Redditor took the new cat to the vet after rescuing her. They had noticed a subtle sign that she might be about to be a mama, but it wasn't enough to be conclusive.
Even their vet was convinced it was something else. The Redditor wrote that the doctor "couldn’t tell if she was pregnant" either, and told them the cat "most probably [was] just fat." Oops!
H_Ko | Shutterstock
Cut to the Redditor being in a full state of "WTF for the next 10 minutes" while "frantically calling" their wife to figure out what the heck someone should do when, you know, their cat just birthed a whole litter of kittens out of nowhere.
"[We] had to emergency prep the guest room as a nursery," they wrote, and spent most of the morning "turning the study upside down now to see if we missed any." Wily little buggers.
Not realizing a cat is pregnant is fairly common because they often don't show up until the last minute.
At least by human standards, cat pregnancies are very short, only lasting a bit more than two months, typically 63 to 65 days. They usually don't begin to show signs until pretty near the end, when they begin to appear larger in their abdomens and show signs that they're producing milk for their kittens.
Because of this, vets say cats can sometimes hide their pregnancy until the last minute — and sometimes right until the very end like with this Redditor, when suddenly there's a bunch of kittens you had no idea were coming.
Catherine Murray | Shutterstock
Should this happen to you, vets say that cats rarely need any assistance giving birth. Once the kittens are born, step one is to make sure all kittens are dry and their nose and mouths are clear so they can breathe.
If you can do so without disturbing the mother and babies, next get rid of any soiled blankets, towels, or other materials nearby and replace them to make sure everyone stays warm. Ideally, the nesting spot should be kept between 85 and 90 degrees if possible for the first week.
Once the kittens are weaned, vets recommend taking mama to be spayed to help control the pet population and avoid any further surprises — cute and cuddly as those surprises may be!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.