You may have seen George and Cameron's stories and now it's time to meet their wee mum. And Madelaine IS wee, as is Moira, the girl I'm pretty sure to be her sister. These two girls, who barely weight four and a bit kgs between them, have a real bond. I'll explain how this became very obvious when writing up Moira's profile. Madelaine was one of three heavily pregnant cats who came into our care from the negligent situation mentioned on many of the current profiles back in April and May, and she gave birth to three little boys overnight between the 15th and 16th of May. I wasn't with Madelaine when she gave birth because she didn't give me any hints at all that she was going into labour, unlike the other two who gave birth on the same night, at the same time, a week earlier, one here with me and the other with another fosterer. It was a bit of a surprise to find three tiny babies lying in one of the beds and, although everything looked just fine with the kittens, no mummy cat was actually lying beside them. Although I've estimated Madelaine's age to be somewhere between one and two years, I can really only say that she's very young but that doesn't mean that this was her first, or even second, litter. After all, cats can go into season and be obviously pregnant by the time they're six months old. All I can be sure of is that there should have been litters of tiny kittens in that place at that time of year but there were none. There can be more than one reason for that, starvation in this case being an obvious one. Madelaine's best pal/sister Moira gave her so much support in the rearing of her three little kittens, possibly knowing long before I did that Madelaine had an underlying condition that could have cost her her life during that pregnancy. It was only when I recently took these two girls to be spayed, the last of these cats to have their ops, that it was discovered that poor Madelaine was suffering from pyometra, a condition affecting the entire womb and which would have certainly killed her had she become pregnany again. This meant a more extensive operation, with her womb having to be removed, than a straightforward spay for poor wee Madelaine, but I'm absolutely delighted to say she has made a great recovery with all the pain the condition must have caused her now well in the past. It could be the pyometra was caused by too many pregnancies for her young body to cope with - it certainly isn't the first time we've had to deal with damaged wombs (and worse) for that very reason. Like all the others, Madelaine is a shy wee girl (see that startled expression in her photo!) so a home, and we really would like her to be homed with Moira as to separate these girls would break their hearts, on a smallholding or similar situation could be perfect for them. A domestic home could be great too, but we have to be so careful to choose just the right people to have the shy ones, people who don't expect them to be lap cats after a couple of days. Madelaine has also been fully vaccinated and microchipped.