Sorry that I have not gotten to this sooner.  I can't believe it has been a week already.  It did take a few days for "recovery" and then a couple more to catch up.

But for those of you interested I will give a run down of the events and I will get some more pictures up today.

The monitoring equipment arrived late in the day on Wednesday, May 7.  We did not do any monitoring until the next morning.  Emma was pretty good about it, but ideally they have to lay very still for 50-60 minutes to really assess.  She was not having any contractions.  On Saturday (5/10) she had some uterine irritability but still no real contractions.  We did do an extra monitoring session and all was quiet. 

On Monday 5/12 we monitored twice and she was still not having any activity.  She also had no change in temperature yet.  (Temperature will usually drop a couple of degrees 48 hours before onset of whelp).  But by the time we were ready for bed she was acting a bit restless and a had a couple of panting sessions.  She got me up a couple times to go potty and continued to have panting sessions but would then settle in and go to sleep.

5/13 She ate her normal breakfast in the morning but was acting very restless.  It was hard for me to get her to lay down to monitor.  A about 8:30 am her bag of water broke and I knew it was time.  I put in my call to Tina Moodhart at 9:00.  Tina had very kindly agreed to be one of my backup helpers.  I was really happy because Tuesday was the only day that Bill was not going to be able to leave work to come home.  I didn't want to do this myself.  Tina arrived at 10:oo am and first puppy - male came at 10:15!  I did not have to assist much as Emma knew what she was doing.  He was a bit slow to get going but once he did, he was great.  He had a nice ridge and some white on his chest.  He weighed in at 12 oz.  We continued to monitor and did give her some calcium and oxytocin (to help contract the uterus).  And at 12:17, puppy #2 a girl arrived.  She came out kicking and screaming and was very active.    We waited again and around 2 pm, puppy #3 came, also a girl.  She was also very feisty at birth.  The girls were 9.5 oz and 10 oz at birth.

Then the long wait began.  We continued to monitor but there were not a lot of contractions.  Fetal heart rate on the last puppy remained strong.  We gave her quite a bit of oxytocin (all this per vet instruction).  But she just was not really contracting anymore and we were getting worried.   At 8 pm, my reproductive vet recommended a c-section for the last puppy.  Since she was going to do the procedure, I was very willing.  I would not have been as willing if I had to go to the emergency vet clinic.  But she is about 45 minutes from home.  We packed up the puppies, Emma and some supplies, just in case puppy started to come on the way and headed off.

When we arrive they took an x-ray and determine that he was laying very  low in her uterus and had not progressed at all up the birth canal.  So the c-section was going to be necessary.  The other pups were put into warm incubators and Emma was prepped.  At about 10:15 pm, boy #2 was born.  He was very vigorous and was the largest at 14.2 oz.  The use a very short acting anesthesia and Emma was awake and nursing the new boy within a few minutes of the completion.   We packed them all up and headed home.  It was around midnight when we got home.  It was not a bad night although Emma does lots of licking and kept knocking the pups off the nipples.  but they were all eating and doing fine.  I am sleeping in the room with the whelping box and did not get much sleep.  Every little peep had to be checked on.

Since Tuesday, I am happy to say the pups have all gained weight at every weigh in.  I do it once in the early morning and once in late afternoon.  It is not unusual for pups to lose an ounce or two and/or stay the same.  But this group caught on quickly and gained well.  It is expected weight should double in the first 7-10 days.  By Saturday (5th day) they had all doubled their weights.

On Friday, 5/9, we went to the vet to have dew claws removed.  Both Emma and the pups did very well.  No problems with that at all.  Emma's incision was checked and she is also doing great. 

Emma is a good mom and the first 4 days would only leave to go potty.  I even fed her in the whelping box because she would not get up to eat.  But her appetite remains very hardy.  Since yesterday (5/19), she is willing to spend a bit more time out of the box.  She came up on the bed with me twice last night (not for more that 10 minutes) and went out this morning and sat in the sun in the yard for about 10 minutes. 

So that brings us to their first week birthday today (5/20).  As of this morning both of the boys - now called blue and red for the ID ribbons they are wearing are over 2 lbs.  The girls, pink and purple will likely be there tomorrow.  Today they will get their little claws clipped for the first time.  Even though they are tiny, they are sharp and they are really using them to knead Emma for milk. 

One last note for now.  While I am thrilled to report that at this point, they all appear to be show quality and will go to show homes, I am sad that I had to disappoint some really nice pet homes.   That is the hardest part of all this.

That's it for now.

Carol

A Belated Happy Mothers Day to all moms out there.   I do consider myself one, by the way, and got a very nice present from my "kids".  It is one of those very nice electronic picture frames.   I will be able to put all kinds of pictures of the new babies and other kids and well, I guess a few human nieces and nephews too.

We had a quiet weekend.  We have been doing the uterine contraction monitoring which has been very "quiet" - one or no contractions so I don't expect any action tonight.  Also her temp has not dropped.  Pregnant bitches will often have a drop in temperature about 48 before delivery.  We have been constant so far.

My buddies Patti Pentler and Tina Moodhart are on call to assist with whelping when the time comes.....It is so nice to be at home for all of this.  It all worked out very well for me.   I am doing my own nesting......scrubbing floors and doing lots of spring cleaning to have everything ready for the little ones who end up being poop and pee machines anyway.......oh well.

But stay tuned - at this point things could change in a minute.

Carol

The good news is that everything looks very good - Emma and puppies look to be doing fine.  The bad news I guess is that they only saw 4 puppies on the x-ray.   That is still not definitive.  She was a bit gassy which can "hide" images but we are definitely not having a dozen.  And of course we will have some info on show vs pet quality when they are born (quality of ridges, tail kinks) but we may not know until closer to 8 weeks what we will have to offer our prospective homes.   We do have several show homes for both females and males but even if the puppies are "show" quality they will have to decide to take one or not.  Although I am not aware of any other Wisconsin litters coming in the next 4-6 months, there are some really nice puppies coming in other parts of the Midwest.  So for anyone who does not get a puppy from me, but would like assistance, I am happy to help.  There was just a litter of 11 born in Ohio on Sunday that is of very nice breeding and may have some available.

Please feel free to call me if you were on my application list and have questions. 

Carol

You will have to indulge me in yet another story before I get into all of this in more detail.  In 1991, I had been working for the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin for about 13 months.   Fortunately BMT has made incredible strides and is a very viable and successful treatment for many cancers and bone/blood diseases.  But back then most of it was very experimental and many of the patients died probably sooner and in more discomfort than had the disease taken its course.  But these were the brave folks that made today's successes possible.  I was not providing patient care, only working with the data but since lots of data was collected daily it was almost like working with the patient.  I got burnt out and decided I wanted to get back into healthcare operations/administration.

I found that opportunity with a company called Healthdyne.   This was a national home health care agency that completely specialized in the care of high risk obstetric patients.  The company had devloped several "home" versions of monitoring equuipment similar to those used in hospitals for monitoring uterine activity and fetal well being.  By providing this equipment, women could monitor in their homes, transmit data via a phone line to a nurse who would interpret the data and provide intervention (via the physician) when needed.   Traditionally women who had high risk pregnancies would have had to have been hospitalized for months.  Or women did not actually realize they were in labor until it was too late and would have very premature babies.   By early identification of preterm labor, drugs could be used to stop contractions and prolong gestation.  And of course many mothers preferred being in their own homes rather than the hospital.  I was administrative manager for the Wisconsin and Illinois regions and enjoyed the work immensely.  In fact, I used data I gather from local hospitals to do a cost benefit analysis that was the basis for my master's thesis.

But in 1996, Healthdyne went through a merger with its only competitor and there were major changes made.  The Wisconsin based office was closed completely.  I was offered the opportunity to relocate but was not interested at the time.  So off I went to hospital administration and because there was no local presence did not stay up on that business.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago when I had an email conversation with Denise Flaim, a breeder on the east coast.  She had just had a large litter and I asked about how it all went.  She credited a very nice whelp to a company called Whelpwise.  She had written an article about it and sent it to me.  Included in the article were a few small photos of the equipment.  I almost fell off my chair.  I had to enlarge on of the photos about 15x but when I did, I knew I was looking at the same equipment we had used with Healthdyne.  In fact it was the Healthdyne logo on the equipment I was seeing in the photo enlargement!  From Denise's article and some other research I did, I found out that one of the former Healthdyne Nurse Managers in the Denver area was also a dog breeder.  She developed the idea and partnered with some veterinarians specializing in canine reproduction and started Whelpwise/Veterinary Perinatal Specialities.

The equipment is provided on a rental basis and you have them at your disposal for assistance 24 hours a day for a 7-10 days before and through the whelp.   They provide essential two types of monitors.  The first is the uterine contraction monitor.  This device is looking for uterine activity in the bitch.  A sensor is attached to her abdomen while she rests it records any activity.  See the picture with this post.    Even 7 days before whelp it is not unusually to see a couple of contractions.  Emma did not show any on her first "strip" this morning.  But this baseline info will help look at any patterns as we get closer to the due date.  It will help us also determine when she is truly in labor when the time comes.

The second piece of equipment is a doppler which is a ultrasonic reader designed to find and assess fetal heart rates.  You can use it to determine how many puppies are actually in there.  Once labor starts you can monitor fetal heart rates in the case of a delay in delivery and you can make sure there have all arrived by listening for any remaining tones.  Since I am having the x-ray tomorrow, we are going to try to do the doppler tonight to see if we can figure out and get the number of puppies right.

If you are interested in more info go to www.whelpwise.com.

Of  course more to come tomorrow.