Moms love unreservedly when they do.

This is particularly relevant to Aspen, a young mother cat who was discovered last week in Texas’s streets with her two new babies. She was unaware that her little family was about to grow significantly and become even cuter at the time.

Aspen and her babies were staying at Parker Paws, so Koby Wegge, the founder of Sycamore Tree Ranch farm sanctuary, contacted them with a special request: she was looking to foster a mother cat who could raise the babies as her own. Koby Wegge had a litter of four rescue kittens who weren’t being nursed by their biological mother.

“Their mom didn’t really want anything to do with them,” Wegge told The Dodo. “We jumped in and started bottle-feeding them every two hours around the clock, and that’s when we thought of the idea of finding them a foster mom. We could give her a comfortable space to raise her own babies, and give our rescue kittens the chance to have a mom.”

The shelter workers instantly knew Aspen would be a great match. They had already introduced her to another orphaned kitten someone had dropped at the shelter, and they bonded right away.

She already had three kittens when she came to live with us [from the shelter]: two of her own and the small orphan, according to Wegge. When we introduced her to our four newborns, who were just a few days old, she fell in love with them right away.

Soon after, Wegge received a call from Aspen’s rescuers at the shelter informing him of the discovery of yet another abandoned kitten, this time crawling lonesomely through someone’s grass. Aspen fell in love with them right away, just like the other orphans.

“Of course we couldn’t leave that little baby at the shelter either,” Wegge said. “So now, she has eight babies from four different litters. She is the best mama to them and is so proud of her kittens.”

Since all the kittens are only about a week old, Aspen spends most of her days snuggling and nursing them. She loves them so much — but is glad to let Wegge and her young daughter help out, too. They help her keep up with nursing by bottle-feeding the kittens a few times each day.

“My daughter loves all the animals on the farm, but when she discovered the kittens she was so excited,” Wegge said. “She’ll sit with them and Mama cat will walk right over and sit in her lap. It’s like she wants to adopt any child there is. She has such a mother’s heart.”

Aspen and her babies will be together for at least the next seven weeks until the kittens are ready to be weaned. Then they will be available for adoption through Parker Paws — but Wegge is already considering keeping Aspen and some of the babies. There are three boys and five girls.