Personally I have my girls palpated at around day 30, my vet is brilliant at this ..... scans can be so misleading and infact are only as good as the person doing the scan. I have known friends of mine have their bitch scanned and told no pups (after day 28), only to return two days later and have another vet perform the scan and to be told they can see puppies ! Also, reabsorption is a fairly common occurence and so you could be told there are 8 pups at the scan and only five pups will be born ... somewhere between the 4-6 week period the bitch has reabsorbed some of the litter. Also depending on the position of the pups in the uterus, some can be hiding behind others and so you can end up with more pups than is seen on the scan. Actually our vets will only scan to diagnose the pregnancy and not say how many pups they can see for this very reason.
Some bitches get a bit of "morning sickness" around the third week, but not all and very often with a first pregnancy you can see a little pinking up/enlarging of the teats at this stage .... although this can happen with a false pregnancy too ! Bitches can also (very soon after a successful mating) become a lot quieter and extremely loving when they are in pup.My standard poodle this year would not leave me alone, normally a very bouncy girl, she became soooo tranquil almost immediately .... pity it didn't last lol and once pups were weaned she went back to being her usual daft self !!!!!!!!!