I Didn't See The 6th One Coming

My plan to clean the house resumed today. I cleaned 2.5 windows. I feel so accomplished. But I have a very good reason for not cleaning. I'm blaming the dog.

Darla was panting heavily when I got up at 7:00 this morning, and I knew she was in labor. I put the boys on the bus and camped by her crate to monitor progress. Except she didn't progress. That's when I decided to wash windows. But I didn't really want to be away from Darla for long, so I kept going back to her crate. I really had a very unproductive morning. As did Darla. She got as far as a water sac protruding, but that was it. At 1:00 I decided that I needed to call the vet, and he decided that I should take Darla in because she was definitely in a "gray area."

We have a c-section scheduled for Darla on Friday morning. We figured we'd give her time to birth naturally, but in the event that she didn't have babies by the weekend, we'd intervene. Rule Number One of raising dogs: you can't predict a thing and dogs will mock your plans.

An x-ray determined that the puppies were still plenty small enough to be born naturally, and that we were expecting 6 rather than 5. Yeah and yeah!

Oxytocin was administered, Darla made a valiant effort, and nothing happened. The vets and I determined that a c-section was inevitable and we'd just as soon get on with it rather than wait any longer. I was told to go sit in the waiting room, and spent the longest 2 hours of my life there. I eventually (and finally!) got to meet my new babies, and sat with Darla who was in a recovery crate away from her babies for safety's sake.

Turns out she wasn't doing well in labor because the water sac she managed to produce in the morning was from puppy #2 in the birth canal. The line-up went water sac from puppy 2, puppy 1, puppy 2. Kind of a tangled mess they had going on and they couldn't figure out who was first nor who was going to give up their spot. We've decided to call those silly boys Jacob and Esau.

When Darla was released, we boxed her brood up and drove home. After getting the new family settled in under a heat lamp and nourished with formula, I let the other dogs out to go potty. Claire the Corgi instantly beelined to the baby crate and I had to redirect her, reminding her that she's not overly fond of nosy housemates near her wee ones and she needed to respect the same rule herself. Being a mom herself, she knew the smell and sound of a newborn and was pretty keen on possibly taking those babies over to make up for the ones she lost herself. (If you ever tell me that dogs don't mourn, I'll call you the crazy one.) It took Jill a while to figure out that there were babies, but she eventually found them.

Jack, however, was all, "Dude! Someone put an egg in the dog dish. I call it! Mine!" because that's the kind of priorities that he has. We're really hoping the puppies get their intelligence from their mama.