This post has been in bits and pieces for over a year. I'd write some and then just not be able to finish it. I feel like I can now!
A year ago we adopted two cats. It turns out that one of them was pregnant. She wasn't much older than a kitten herself, and the poor thing got so huge she couldn't even clean her own bottom! She had five kittens. When the kittens were about three weeks old, I noticed one night that the mama cat (Bubbles) was acting strange- twitching and crying and she had a fever. Turns out she had what is called "milk fever" which is when the mama doesn't have enough calcium in her body for both herself and her babies, and she develops eclampsia, which can quickly lead to paralysis and death. We took her to the vet and got her stabilized, and we were told she couldn't nurse the kittens any more. So we started bottle feeding them, and I would let her in after their bellies were full so she could try to top them off, and more importantly, she could clean their bottoms and help them defecate because I wasn't having any luck with a wet washcloth! At the times when she had to be separated from them, she would sit outside their door and cry, and clean any paw that they stuck out at her, and when we opened the door she would rush in, calling to them, trying to lick them all at the same time, and then settling down to nurse them. She was such a dedicated, giving, self-sacrificing mama. And it almost killed her. And we had to keep her from doing what she wanted to do most in the world because if she did, she may have gotten past the point where she had nothing left to give.