Caching objects in a C extension

[casevh]

I'm working with a C extension that needs to rapidly create and delete
objects. I came up with an approach to cache objects that are being
deleted and resurrect them instead of creating new objects. It appears
to work well but I'm afraid I may be missing something (besides
heeding the warning in the documentation that _Py_NewReference is for
internal interpreter use only).

Below is a simplified version of the approach I'm using:

MyType_dealloc(MyTypeObject *self)
{
    if(I_want_to_save_MyType(self)) {
        // Save the object pointer in a cache
        save_it(self);
    } else {
        PyObject_Del(self);
    }
}

MyType_new(void)
{
    MyTypeObject *self;
    if(there_is_an_object_in_the_cache) {
        self = get_object_from_cache;
        _Py_NewReference((PyObject*)self);
    } else {
        if(!(self = PyObjectNew(MyTypeObject, &MyType))
            return NULL;
        initialize_the_new_object(self);
    }
    return self;
}

The objects referenced in the cache have a reference count of 0 and I
don't increment the reference count until I need to resurrect the
object. Could these objects be clobbered by the garbage collector?
Would it be safer to create the new reference before stuffing the
object into the cache (even though it will look like there is a memory
leak when running under a debug build)?

Thanks in advance for any comments,

casevh