Four New Additions!

Maggie had her puppies! She actually had six puppies, but sadly, we lost two. It would have been four girls and two boys, but two girls died. So, now we're even - Two boys and two girls!

Dogs have three stages of labor, and the first one is the longest - it went for 24 hours before she started pushing! Yesterday (Wednesday) around 5pm she started pushing and by midnight Maggie had five puppies. We thought she was done, so we let her out to go potty, I finally ate something and hung out for two hours, but while I was eating, she looked like she had some contractions. We went back to the "nursery" and an hour later, she had another girl! This last girl was the biggest of the litter, too.

We named them already... I know we probably shouldn't have, but we did anyway. :) We plan on keeping one girl and selling the rest.

Elsie

Clyde

Owen

Olive (she was the last one)

I'm sitting in an 80 degree room while the puppies nurse and Maggie sleeps, and I'm dying from the heat! (Maggie doesn't like it much, either) But, the puppies need it to be very warm, so I'll do that for them.I haven't gotten any good sleep since Tuesday during the day (from when I got home from working Monday night), so hopefully I can get some sleep soon.

We're going to take them into the vet when Kelly goes in for work this morning and I'm looking forward to leaving the house and seeing what Dr. Hunt or Dr. Andrews says. (Whoever is in)

I figure I'm a Grandma now... We'll see how this goes... :) I'm way excited to see what the next 8 weeks bring!

UPDATE: Well, we took them to the vet, and unfortunately Owen has a really bad cleft palate. Dr. Andrews taught me how to tube feed him and said that it might close the hole up a little, but it might not and then we would have to get him surgery. but to go talk to Kelly and see what we wanted to do. So, this afternoon after Kelly got home, we talked about it and he called Dr. Andrews back and got some more information. We decided it would probably be best if we put him down. It was a really hard decision, but we thought it would be for the best. Kelly's brother Dan was nice enough to take Owen in, but it was hard for him too. Kelly and I just held each other and cried for a long time. This was harder for me than the stillborn puppies. :(

A little while later, I noticed I had a voice mail from the hospital, so we listened to it, and Dr. Andrews said he looked again and thought he might be able to save him, so he was going to take him home for the night and see what he could do. But, a couple hours later, he called and said the feeding wasn't working, so he was going to put him down in the morning.

I feel especially bad for Kelly because he has to go into work at the hospital  tomorrow. I'm sorry for putting you through this roller coaster story, but it feels good to write it out.

Maggie is being an okay mom, she doesn't notice one is missing and occupies herself with cleaning her three. She's very attentive to their cries, but she is kind of careless in not paying attention to where they are and will sit or step on them. We are only leaving her with the pups under our supervision. The puppies are growing, and even after I took a three hour nap, they looked bigger, and cuter. :) I'm staying up all night watching them, since that's what I'm used to anyway, and then when Kelly gets home, I'll get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day. :)

I just took this picture of her feeding her puppies.

She blinked... lol