My first post! First, I guess I should provide a little background. In May of 2005, we received our first litter of foster kittens. As you can see from the photo I took with my cell phone when I picked them up, they were 6 orange tabbies, almost identical. We named them Dakota, Jack, LT (Little Tony) Latte, Sadie and Lilly. At the time I thought they were a handful, but looking back now, I know how easy that litter was. They were all eating solids, they were healthy, and perfect.
Of course, we fell in love with them all, and considered adopting one of them! The organization we provide this service to has a rule. No foster provider can adopt until they have been fostering for 90 days. This may sound harsh, but it is truly a good rule. It takes 90 days for you to realize you will fall in love with all of them, and you can't keep them all. It was hard, but now we have a lot more will power.
So, 3 years and over 80 cats later, we still enjoy it. Last year was difficult, as there were more sick kittens, and we lost some. It is heartbreaking, but you do as much as you can. For a while it seemed like every litter we got ended up sick. We lost all 5 kittens of one litter, the mom and 3 of 5 kittens from another. The 2 surviving kittens from the last litter from last year were so sick, I was not sure I wouldn't lose them too, but we struggled, and fought, and they made it. We also had those two for almost 6 months! That was Mimi, and Minnie. (Or Mini Mimi). They both finally got adopted, although Minnie had such a bad eye infection when she was tiny that they had to remove it. Not that it slowed her down any. Both of these girls were delightful, once they felt better, and were as playful as any we had fostered.
This year we are now on litter #3. We have Robyn, who is back for round 2. She was also with our second litter, but much smaller than they were, so she is back with 4 other kittens. Noah, Natalie, Reuben and Sullivan. More on theses guys after work.
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