Just waiting

Smudge this morning

Smudge had a restless night last night and this morning has moments of obvious discomfort and then calm, she is sleeping now as I type this. 
Yesterday evening I blogged and I really hoped that last night we might of started to see the arrival of Smudge's litter, but the stage she is at now can last 24 hours and sometimes 48 hours. It's really when they start straining that you set the timer. The stage she is at now though, she could also just get up strain a couple times and you have a pup, so you really need to keep in ear shot of a bitch when they are at this stage, visually checking them often and trying to do this without them noticing you to much.
She is regularly going outside for her ablutions and the last few nights has had to go out a couple times during the night and early hours of the morning due to having little room inside her now, carrying such a large litter.
For all those partners out there that have done the vigil of waiting for their partner to give birth, I have every sympathy, even though I have been the partner giving birth six times whilst my husband David waited, as for me, I think waiting, especially when you're not sure when the main event is going to kick off, very arduous. 

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