MsgSent statistics question

I am trying to troubleshoot an odd v6 peering connection issue. Does anyone
know at what point is MsgSent in BGP summary or neighbor summary calculated?
Does the MsgSent include initial TCP connections before establishment?

Thanks,
Zaid

http://hen.cs.ucl.ac.uk/library/hardware/routers/procket/20fcs/routing_protocols/bgp.verify19.html

http://www.inetdaemon.com/tutorials/internet/ip/routing/bgp/operation/finite_state_model.shtml

http://www.cymru.com/Documents/barry2.pdf

I would check the latest version of the RFC and also the IOS/BGP version you are
running..........