Ruca started labor around 9:30pm when I got home December 2nd, 2009.  The first stage is slight labor pains and a little pushing.  Ruca was so tough the whole time.  After the night of only five hours of sleep and my boyfriend sleeping in the closet with her my stress level started to rise.  I had to go to work and could not stay home even though I had waited five years to do this!

The thing we learned from all of the research we did online was that if she had not had a puppy for a half an hour we had to worry.  The key here is though if she is actually pushing/contracting continuously for over a half an hour the puppy could be stuck.  Even if you cannot see the puppy it could be stuck in the mother's hip area.
Even reading all of the horror stories and watching everyones videos we could not have been prepared enough.  The research ended up making us more paranoid than anything. 

The first three puppies came out fine.  Ruca did not even cry!

The first was a black girl with a little white on her chest.  She was as small as a mouse!

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Puppies two and three!

There was not much time between the next two puppies and Ruca was still doing great!

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Now it gets a little tense.  A half hour goes by and no fourth puppy......  At this point I am at work and my boyfriend is at home taking care of this and sending me pictures.  It was extremely nerve racking!!!!  Ruca was doing great and only having a few contractions, nothing serious....yet.
It is about 10:30 am on December 3rd, a Thursday.  On Thursdays we have an hour meeting at 11am, which I just went to....
My boyfriend just called and left me a voicemail....still no fourth puppy.

At this point the vet suggested we do a calcium test.  I did hear that giving the mother a calcium table or some milk could help with her labor making it quicker and easier for her.  I had some sitting out and reminded my boyfriend of what we had been suggested but at the time it was not the first thing he thought of.