cats unusual labor

Question
My cat Lilly, is a little over a year old, & this is her 1st pregnancy. She went into labor on Friday, April 1..about 9:30 p.m.
She started to have a normal labor except she jumped into my lap & delivered the 1st kitten. Then I moved her & the blanket into the floor. All went well with the 1st kitten, she cleaned the sac off & ate the placenta. About 1 hour later the 2nd kitten was born. She did the same as she did with the 1st kitten. So about midnight I checked to see if she delivered another one. She hadn't, & I went to bed thinking there would be more in the morning. At 6:00 a.m. no more kittens & I'm sure there is at least one more kitten in there. So we wait..I've heard from a few people that their cat had a few & then had a few more in the next couple of days. Here it is Sunday about 2:30 p.m. & her water broke again & we saw visible contractions off & on for about an hour. But no more kittens ! She has been nursing pretty good but does move her kittens around a lot & sometimes doesn't go back to them, so we move them back to her, which is the same spot she gave birth. I think all this is weird. And hope she gives birth soon to the other one & she is ok & the kitten not dead. So is any of this normal? Do cats wait a few days to finish delivering?

Answer
Heidi,

No it is not normal for a cat to take several days to deliver their babies - no more so than it would be for a person, in fact cats generally have reasonably quick deliveries once they begin having kittens - often averaging a baby every 15 minutes to half hour or so until the entire litter is born. The best chance your kittens have of survival is to have Lilly see a vet ASAP to determine whether or not she needs a caesarian section to deliver any remaining kittens. The reason that momma is probably moving away from the kittens is because when they nurse she has uterine contractions that hurt her - especially if there are one or more kittens still stuck inside of her womb....Unfortunately for Lilly the best thing for the kittens that have already been born is to nurse from their mother as much as possible. The sooner Lilly gets treatment the better off she'll be and the better her kittens' chance of survival are. If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me again - I'm happy to help in any way that I can.

Kind regards,

Ali