First of all, thank you to everyone who responded and tried to help. I guess I discovered the reason for her pickiness and loss of appetite...LOL!...and I promise to learn how to count the days accurately next time because she was obviously farther along than I thought.
My Mercedes gave birth to 3 very beautiful and healthy girls yesterday afternoon! (Pup #1 was 4 oz, pup # 2 was 4.2 oz, and pup #3 was 4.2 oz.) Momma and babies are doing fine. I wanna cry every time I see her in her whelping box with her babies because she is such a good mother. I am so proud of her!
This was her 1st litter. After all the reading and research I had done, she gave me "very few" signs that she was going into labor. She was big but didn't look full blown, full term to me. She started with being picky with food & loss of appetite (which is the reason for the original post) and a little bit of nesting behaviour, which she has always done with her bedding. She always had a habit of digging and moving her blankets around whenever she wanted to lay down. Other than than, NOTHING! She went into labor yesterday at 12:30pm and had her last pup at 3:10pm. I was with her and she did almost everything all by herself. She needed very little help from me and I am so proud of her!
What happened was, I walked into the whelping room and saw her on her stomach, butt kind of up in the air, and tail standing up! I immediately called the vet when I saw that she was actually having contractions and pushing because I thought she was going in to premature labor at 51 days!!! I was so worried! I wanted to pick her up and rush her to the vet but I was scared because I lifted her leg and saw the pup coming out. Puppy #1 was born while I was on the phone with the vet and I watched as she pushed for about 5 minutes. When the puppy came out, Mercedes went to work immediately, knowing exactly what to do! After she cleaned it up, I took it, weighed it, and it was evident that it was a healthy little girl and it was squirming and crying for it's momma. :-) I told the vet it looked healthy, weighed 4oz., and she said that was a good weight. She asked how Mercedes was doing and I told her she was doing great! She was busy cleaning the pup but looked relaxed. So the vet told me to let her have the rest of her pups (we were expecting 2 more) and she didn't think we would have anything to worry about because from the x-ray we took 6 days ago, the puppies all looked about the same size but keep the phone close by, so I did......and she was right.
Puppy # 2 was born an hour later without an complications or problems.
Puppy #3 did come out breech, took a little longer than I was comfortable with and just when I thought I need to intervene, Mercedes pushed her out. I immediately opened the sack around the head, wiped its face, used the suction thingy and Mercedes kept pushing my hand away because she wanted to do it. As soon as she was done with her umbilical cord, I could see the puppy wasn't breathing right. She was gasping, not breathing so I took her and cleared out mouth and nose again. I thought I was going to lose her and worked on her for over half an hour. She was never dead, just gasping for air. Finally, she started breathing right and was crying for her momma. (I weighed her today and she has already gained 2 oz. She squirms around quick and is the loudest of the 3 pups and is very unhappy when she doesn't feel her momma around and she will let you know! LOL!)
Thank goodness I already had everything set up for whelpiing and didn't have to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off! I wasn't expecting her to have the babies for another 2 weeks or so.
Most of all, I am so grateful for forums like Yorkie Talk where someone can come to get help, support and advice! I learned so much by reading EVERYTHING on here and I'm still learning. Thank you everyone!
Here are a few pictures of the puppies and one of Mercedes (pre-pregnancy). I promised her I wouldn't post a current pic until after she is able to pretty herself up. LOL!