A Mother's Prayers...

For Mother's Day, I have a real treat for you all. I have written a guest post for RichmondPetLovers.com (that's not the treat, but by all means, hop on over to take a gander), so I have a guest blogger here for you all! Below is a story my Dad wrote about Millie's mother, Delaney. I hope you enjoy! Happy Mother's Day!

She is in tune to every signal. The slightest eye contact causes her tail to wiggle with harmonious, joyous approval in short, quick little strokes. Whenever you make eye contact you can almost hear a little "tinkle-tinkle-tinkle" sound. She had been a slender fast-moving little canine. But there she was at the end of her pregnancy, the steps she had effortlessly navigated two months earlier might as well have been the Berlin Wall, and she had resorted to using her tail to summon assistance--kind of like help I've fallen and I can't get up--rather than to telegraph the essential message of Pippa Passes.

Weeks earlier, ultrasound showed that she would give birth to five puppies and now the anticipation of the miracle of birth and motherhood quickened. Her shallow, labored breathing betrayed every mother's burden. A little brown and white female puppy came first. Before she could finish cleaning the new arrival, there was a second, a brown and white male, and then a third, a brown male. But this little brown male would not breathe. My wife held his tiny little form in her hand, placed her lips against his and breathed the breath of life. Then there was a fourth, a tiny little brown female runt. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour and finally two hours passed and no fifth puppy. The new little mother strained and strained to no avail. So off we rushed at one o'clock in the morning to the veterinary emergency room, whelping box, newborns, and hard laboring new mother in tow.

The young female veterinarian placed the stethoscope next to the new mother's heart and then next to her belly. She did not need to speak, her countenance spoke for her. "I'm sorry, I do not hear the puppy's heartbeat. We need to induce harder contractions. Let me do a quick x-ray." She returned. "The puppy is upside down in the birth canal and likely has not survived. We will have to remove it somehow." A joyous moment had faded. My wife silently prayed for a miracle. She had already breathed the breath of life into one puppy. Why not expect another one? An air of confidence retuned to the room. The door opened and the once somber veterinarian joyously proclaimed: "We have a fifth puppy." The prayers of two mothers were answered; the circle was complete; Mildred Lazarus Runyon (a.k.a. "Millie") cam forth and an exhausted mother's tail wagged, exclaiming: "I just gave birth to five puppies and I will be able to bound up and down the stairs without dragging my belly! Life is good! By the way, does anybody here know a good babysitter?"