Maybe not as far along as we thought!?!

What a week it has been. First of all I became a mother again!! No not the puppies. They are still safe and sound inside of Callie and hopefully they will stay there for about another week. I am talking about the baby bird I found in Jessica's room. Now Jessica is a lot like me and is a real animal lover. So after I took the kids to school and came home to get my shower I heard this strange noise coming from Jessica's room. There I found this baby bird. There were very few feathers on it so it is really still a newborn. All the bird did was make noise and look up at me and open its mouth as wide as possible to be fed. So I scooped the bird up into a little container with some of the doll clothes it was sitting on in her room and got in the van and headed for the school. I figure she found it somewhere and brought it home thinking she could care for it. I got her out of class and asked her where she got it from so I can put it back and hopefully the mother bird will continue taking care of it. Jessica seemed to be completely surprised and did not know anything about how it got there. So my next thought was to head down to the Veterinarians office. I thought surely they would have some idea for me about what to do with it, if not just take it off my hands themselves. No such luck. The Vet simply told me to take it home and feed it. He said you know grind up some worms and spit it in the birds mouth. Then he walked away. I must have had a look of complete shock because when he came back around the corner he was laughing. He gave me some little droppers for feeding and told me that I really could feed the bird any kind of cereal I had in the house just get it wet enough and soggy enough to be able to go into the dropper. He told me to feed it every three hours and keep it warm. Then when it is big enough just let it fly away. So I brought it home and got a shoe box, added some holes, put a warm towel in the box then fed the bird some warm baby rice cereal. The bird actually seemed to enjoy it. He then seemed to settle in and go to sleep. So I closed the box and put it in a safe place where there are no other animals. I then started looking online about how to care for this baby, and how long I would be caring for this baby. There I found information about these wonder people called Wildlife Rehabilitators. Apparently these people care for any wild animal in need of rescue. So I researched and found the number I needed, called and within 45 minutes there was someone at my door willing to take this baby and raise it so it would be able to survive in the wild and live a full life. At the time I was very happy and relieved to see the little one go. However, now I find myself wondering about it. Wondering how it is doing. We still don't know where it came from or how it got into my house. The only thing we have been able to think of is that the bird fell out of his nest and then one of our cats brought it in the house. It is amazing the cat did not kill it. Although our female cat Nala has been known to bring in mice from the cold outside in winter and then let them go to wander the house. I have had to catch quite a few and then let them go outside in the nearby fields. I think of all the cute movies where the animals all talk to each other and picture my male cat finding this bird and telling it "wow you are in real trouble. Come with me I know a lady that will take care of everything. She brought me back from the brink of death twice now."

This is not a picture of the actual bird that I had but it really looked just like these two.

Anyway enough about that I am sure if you are visiting this page you want to hear about puppies!!! Well I do have some news about the puppies. Callie had her x-ray today and we are expecting 2 puppies!! So not a huge litter for her first. That could be good or it could be bad. Good in the fact that being a first time mom and only having two will not be as overwhelming for her. Bad in that sometimes with a small litter the puppies are just too big to fit through the birth canal and so a c-section is required. I just really hope it all goes well and that everyone comes out healthy. I had planned on having a really cool picture of the x-ray on here showing the little puppy skeletons but, obviously that did not work out. Even at the vets office it was super hard to see them. When I looked at it her abdomen looked completely empty to me. The Vet had to point out the two little skulls. I did take a picture but no matter how hard I tried to play with the brightness and exposure I could not make out anything on the photo. So this brings up another matter. Callie is 54 days today from her first breeding with Tux. The Vet was asking about how many times they were bred and when the last breeding was. She was asking because she said that the bone density of the skeletons was just not that developed yet. So she is thinking that she did not concieve until that last breeding. Which now puts all my dates about a week off. So instead of being on day 54 we are thinking she is actually more like day 47. So this will put her due date around the first week of June. So now I am trying to decide if I should do another x-ray closer to that time or just stick with the one I have. I know it is a good idea to have some sort of idea of the size of the pups so you can plan on having any complications but do I really want to expose them to more x-rays? The Vet did say that she felt pretty good about there being two even though you could barely make anything out on the film so perhaps I should just leave it at that. But then again this being my first litter I would really like to more certain about how many to expect. I know I will rest a lot easier if I know she is really done and there is not one more puppy hiding in there. Decisions, decisions.