Their response was: "Urgh, gross." I could not chastise too much since my outburst was: "Ahh no, not on my new carpet." The cat gave birth regardless.

Sandy, our cat, had been getting a bit fat. The tom cats had finally stopped wailing outside our windows night and day (I now understand what people mean when they use the definition 'cats chorus', and at the same time as I was so tempted to find out about the sound people describe as being a 'strangled cat'), and poor Sandy just did not seem to know what to do with herself.

She was hungry yet she wasn't, she wanted in but would hesitate at the door. Basically she was being a furry pain in the butt!

Bank Holiday weekend and my little family were lying in the hallway playing dominoes and enjoying the smell and feel of our new carpet, when Sandy waddled past.

Her backside was on eye level to us all and we looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Sandy is doing a poo, throw her out quick," my daughter yelled. The cat dived behind me and then set off to find a birthing place, leaving ick trails in her wake.

Ten minutes later and Sandy seemed to have decided that this was something she did not want to do alone.

We could see her tummy grinding and contracting. My husband Tim started to stroke her back firmly and it really seemed to help her.

I was torn between feeling really proud of him being so sensitive to Sandy and absolute, sickening jealousy that this cat was getting all the attention and support from my husband which he never showed me either time I gave birth.

OK, with extreme amounts of medical intervention both times he never really had the chance but that is beside the point. Huh!

My attempts at following the cat with a towel were fruitless, as were my son's attempts at spraying Oxy carpet magic stuff on every stain.

Then the first kitten began to make an appearance.

"Why is the kitten coming out of her bum," my son asked, his head cocked to one side. Thankfully I did not have to reply to this question as it had quickly been replaced by another.

The first born plopped onto the soft, bouncy, beautiful and previously clean carpet in a mass of goo and guts.

Whereupon Sandy turned and began to lick her baby clean. Cries of "Uuurrgghh, that's gross" and "Mum, stop her, she is eating her baby" filled what I assumed should have been a beautiful moment.

Some days later, my cousin also gave birth, thankfully in a hospital and not in my hallway though.

Her son was born naturally and both mother and child were doing well. I took my kids in to the hospital to visit them. As my daughter bounded up to my cousin's bed, arms laden with presents and homemade cards, my son approached carefully and unusually quietly.

He tentatively climbed up on the bed and cuddled my cousin, his eyes full of concern.

"Does your bum hurt?" he asked her.

She roared with laughter and looked to me for an explanation.

I have to wonder. How do you explain to children about all nature's beauty and wondrous magic when much of it is hidden in ick?

It is easy to show a child a butterfly or a bumble bee in a flower-filled garden and have them understand what beauty is.

How do you compare that to a snake swallowing a mouse whole, or a tiger feeding a deer to its cubs and especially a life being born out of a bum?

It is all nature and fascinating in its splendour but who are we kidding when we call it beautiful. The kids don't buy that line!

Sometimes nature is just ick!