Pregnant?!?

Ready for the big and shocking news I've been waiting to tell you....

We're pregnant!!!!

Well.... NOT exactly me and Ben personally... but our precious Ellie is!! Yes, my little DOG is going to be a mom! Let me repeat, my DOG is PREGNANT! (Not me... My mom said this will probably start rumors when I put it on here, so I just want to clarify! haha But I knew the title would sucker you all in to reading! :)) Anyway, we are soooo excited and scared! I think both Ben and I are still a little shocked.

Here is the story. We haven't gotten Ellie fixed yet because we knew we wanted to let her have one set of puppies at some point. My sister has a boy maltese, so the plan was to let them get together. Last month when I went home for Abby's 2nd birthday party, I took Ellie and we thought we would let the two run around together and if it happened, it happened. Well Ellie would not let that dog near her. He kept trying to do his thing, and she would bite him, bark, and run from his as fast as she could. We just figured she was never going to allow it, and actually thought we would just have to get her fixed because we were tired of dealing with her cycles.

As time passed, Ben and I started to notice that her nipples (Am I allowed to say that word on a blog? It seems a little vulgar... sorry... I don't know what else to call them! haha) started to swell. A week ago Ben started to think Ellie was looking a little bigger. We started to notice that she was going to the bathroom a LOT more than usual, and she was having trouble jumping up on things that she usually could jump on (like our bed and couch). So, this past weekend when we were home, we had our vet, who just happens to be one of my dads good friends, come over to our house. He felt of her and told us he is 95% sure she is pregnant! Yay! So I've been researching maltese pregnancies like crazy over the last two days!

I just got back from taking her to a vet down here in Birmingham, that confirmed she is pregnant! I just took her in because I wanted to be sure to have one here just in case there are any complications or problems when she goes into labor. They have a 24 hour clinic, so I am glad I can call at any point in time if I need to. I'm just hoping and praying that I'm home when this all happens. I'm scared Ellie won't know what to do when the puppies are born, or I'm scared she will have difficulty and may need to be taken to an animal hospital. Its quite scary, but so exciting!! The puppies will be TINY! We are expecting her to have anywhere between 2-5...We may be selling them, so if any of you are interested let me know! It just depends on how many she has. But they will be full maltese puppies! I know you'll want one when you see them...and so will I...but Ben says no. Just maybe I can talk him into it over the next couple of weeks...

Anyway, here is a picture of Ellie snoozing on the couch the other night. You can really see her belly in this picture. She was so relaxed that we could put our hand on her belly and feel the puppies moving!! It was soo cool! In this next one, you really probably wouldn't be able to tell she is pregnant if you didn't know her. We can definitely tell she is much bigger. She has gained 1.8 pounds though in a month.. so we know they are in there! Estimated time of arrival.....2-3 weeks!! Ah!!

YAY for Maltese puppies! YAY for ELLIE! and YAY for having Grandpuppies!