When I went to do the noon check a little early (11am), Sugar was laying down and grunting pretty hard. I don't know if she was really pushing or not, but she was grunting every so often, seemed like at regular intervals. Everything else looked like it's always looked ~ no swelling vulva, no bag, no discharge of any kind ~ so I may be jumping the gun, but I don't know. She's not eating and she NEVER misses a meal if she can help it, so maybe this is really it. Woo-hoo! I HOPE SO!!!
I watched her for half an hour and when she'd grunt, she'd also roll over on her side a bit (as much as she can as big as she is! *grin* Bless her heart!). And she seemed to be breathing a little faster and harder than normal. I called the vet and described it to him, and he said if I don't see hooves by 2:00, call him. I asked him if this was the first stage of labor and he said probably. From what I've been reading and what he said, this stage is when the calf gets ready to move into the birth canal and there might not be any outward signs of birth for a while.
After watching her for another 20 minutes or so, she got up and is walking around a bit, getting a little drink. She's not grunting anymore, so maybe she was grunting because she was uncomfortable laying down? But she's not eating...
Maybe this is why I had a feeling last night that I should go check on her ~ a strong enough feeling that I actually got out of bed at 1:30am and went outside with the flashlight. ;)
(In the one pic, it looks like her rear is swelling, but it's really not ~ she's so big these past three weeks that when she lays down it pushes everything out and makes it look like that ~ yeah, I got excited a few weeks ago when I first saw that! LOLOL!)
