Photo by andertho

If there’s one thing that would lift our sagging spirits, it would be another adorable baby panda. To that end, there’s good news out of the National Zoo today—after being artificially inseminated in April, Mei Xiang has shown a secondary rise in urinary progesterone, indicating a the possible pitter patter of little panda feet at some point in the near future!

Well, maybe. “This means that she will either give birth to a cub or experience the end of a pseudopregnancy in 40 to 50 days,” says the zoo in a release, again warning that panda pregnancies are surprisingly hard to predict. “Mei Xiang has had five consecutive pseudopregnancies since 2007,” it notes. More from the zoo:

Since the artificial inseminations National Zoo scientists have conducted weekly hormonal analyses on urine samples from Mei Xiang. Zoo veterinarians are also conducting ultrasounds frequently to monitor changes in her reproductive tract and evaluate for evidence of a fetus. Panda fetuses do not start developing until the final weeks of gestation. It may be too early to detect a fetus. Keepers are also monitoring Mei Xiang’s behavior, which has been consistent with a rise in urinary progesterone. She has begun nest-building.

Maybe this is the year that Mei Xiang finally produces another Butterstick, more formally known as Tai Shan. There’s at least one hopefully indicator that that could be the case: she was artificially inseminated with the same sperm that produced Butterstick himself some seven years ago. But if she doesn’t come through, we might have to hope we get another pair of more frisky (and fertile) pandas once the lease on Mei Xiang and Tian Tian is up in 2015.