Pregnancy confirmed !

Jess has been to the vet and had an ultrasound which confirmed that she was pregnant :D Yay !  Unfortuantly the vet had some stupid rules about not being allowed in the room where they do the scans so I was unable to pester them about trying to see how many pups she might have. By the time I got handed the scans in the waiting room the vet wasn't prepared to offer more information then the fact that heartbeats had been seen and she was definitely pregnant :(

Still, ultrasound is known to be somewhat unreliable for determining the exact number of pups partly due to the size of them - at 4 weeks old they are only one inch long ! Still, would have been nice to have a "rough indication" eg 2 or 12 :)  Another scan could be made at a later time (or a x-ray) but I think we'll just "wait and find out".

I've uploaded the pictures from the 2 scans - you can see them in the section on the right hand side "Photos - Pregnancy". I'm going to take some time-lapse photos of Jess so I can see how her body shape changes over time (nothing obvious at the moment).  Just have to get her to stand still in the same place each week :)

Time for some more research now into what else is needed for the whelping process. We're borrowing a whelping box from a friend so that saves some money - otherwise this place looked excellent, I liked the idea that they were designed to be thrown away after the event

http://www.petnapwhelpingboxes.co.uk/

They've got a number of other things which I may get from them : Whelping kit and heat pads for starters.  Not sure what if anything else is needed/recommended.

Cost of ultrasound : £73, total now past the £1300 mark ! :(