Monday Update: Sometimes Life gets Cluttered

So, last week was of course rather stressful. Let me see. All right:

A) I was both busy and fretful on Monday and Tuesday — busy trying to get some stuff finished at work, fretting over Leda, who almost completely quit eating on Monday. She was in theory due Friday. Writing progress: minimal work on NO FOREIGN SKY.

B) Wednesday — a semi-emergency c-section. I didn’t think Leda looked terrible, but I wasn’t happy with her complete lack of appetite, and my vivid memory of how her grandmother lost two puppies out of three out of every litter because of premature labor didn’t help. I had been supplementing with progesterone for weeks to prevent premature labor, but still.

So, as I say, an early section. I took her up to Chesterfield and my reproductive vet did an ultrasound and said there was at least one dead puppy, but no way to tell when it had died. If it had died that morning, then the others could perfectly well die of whatever had killed it. If it had died a week ago, then whatever had killed it might or might not present a threat to the others. Two days early is pretty early, but I’ve done sections that early before and had no trouble. We agreed it was reasonable to do the section that day.

Result: four vigorous puppy of perfectly decent weights, 6.6 to 7.7 ounces — within the normal range for full-term puppies. Leda immediately began producing milk, though she had no real maternal instinct at the time.

C) Thursday was a quiet recovery day for both Leda and me. I wanted the puppies to nurse as much as possible because that causes the mother to release oxytocin and that causes both milk letdown and maternal behavior. I tube-fed a little, but left the puppies hungry so they would nurse. Long Wednesday night involving frequent checks on peeping puppies, long Thursday involving hanging out while keeping an eye on the puppies and Leda.

I also read a good bit of the second INDA book — it’s a series I’ve been wanting to re-read, and I’m slowly making progress on getting through it.

D) Friday and Saturday, I finished going over the paper copy of NO FOREIGN SKY and then tweaked the digital file, and thank heaven that’s done. I’m sending it to proofreaders now.

I’m now reading a paper copy of TASMAKAT. Much less tweaking, but a much longer book, so that’ll take a few days.

So, actually, I’m in a pretty good place with progress on upcoming books, though I certainly hope and expect to get to INVICTUS and revise that this month, preferably before May, which would put everything right on schedule for the year.

Whew, long week last week, but Leda’s maternal instincts are properly in by this time, she and the puppies are all doing well, I’m barely tube-feeding, and all is, I hope, going to be fine with the babies. I hope and expect to have a much calmer few weeks before the puppies actually get super, super distracting.