Volk Fest 2012

The Volk Family picnic was this past Saturday at Milo McIver state park.  Thank you Bethany for organizing and setting up this fun get-together!  Just wanted to post a few photos of the day.  If you want the whole disc, email me :)

2 months old

 Little Man is 2 months old and finally starting to be more than an eating, pooping machine (wont say sleep since he doesn't seem to be a fan).  We got our first smile right around 6 weeks and he is now starting to focus on faces...sometimes :)  His stats from his 2 month appointment are; 24 inch height (85%), 11.8 weight (30%) and a huge head, 42 centimeters (>97%).  Working on fattening up my kid, but that seems to be my constant struggle with both kiddos!!  Fi is still loving her baby brother, which is a good thing since he is a fairly demanding little guy!  Will try to keep at least the monthly photo bombs up and if I can, post some from earlier.  Hope you all are having a great summer...

 Had to include this one for Fiona...her little alien was keeping watch :)

Declan; Photos and birth story

 Wow, I just realized how far behind I was on my posts.  I still have photos of my trip to bend with Fiona...but I guess I'll wait to get those up and at least get Declan's birth story and a few pics up.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks, I still cant believe my little guy is almost 2 weeks old and his due date isn't until next week!  I was so sure that i would have another late baby.

Couple from the Iphone from the last few days

Birth Story (sorry so long but I need to get it down before I forget it all...lack of sleep is sucking my memory from me)

I had a Dr.'s appointment the day before he was born.  I had the MD check to see if I was dilated or anything at Matt's request (he was suppose to go out of town the next week).  I was sure she was going to tell me I still had a ways to go and to send him on his way.  But, of course I got the opposite...4 cm dilated and she said from what she could feel she wouldn't be surprised to see me that weekend.  I was in a bit skeptical since I was 3 cm with Fiona for 3 weeks!  But to be on the safe side Matt cancelled his trip and I started my maternity leave early (I was suppose to go in Friday, Sunday and Monday).

 One of the other reasons I skipped work was that I had tested positive for Group B strep...it's a test that they started doing about 10 years ago.  Most people are carriers but the bacteria will colonize at certain times and if you give birth during that time there is a chance that the baby will get it too.  For adults it's no big deal, for infants it can cause big problems.  The solution is to be administered IV antibiotics at least 4 hrs before giving birth.  I work at least 30 minutes from home (on a good day without traffic) but it can be up to an hr if you get stuck in traffic....and that has been one of my biggest fears (getting stuck in traffic while in labor)!

I felt great that evening (Thursday)  and even called Mom to tell her it might be sooner that his due date but if she came up the next week it would probably be fine.  Friday morning Fiona and I got up and were getting ready for the day.  I was still going to have my babysitter come by for a couple of hours to try and get some things done around the house (aka pack my hospital bag and wash some baby clothes).  Around 8 Matt called to see how things were going....not bad, some mild contractions but I had those on and off for weeks.  He said if anything came up he was going to the gym and didn't get good reception and to text him.  About 10 minutes later I realized the contractions were getting stronger and closer together...like every 2 minutes and I texted Matt that I thought he should come home.  I didn't get a response and decided to call the gym and have him paged.  I think I scared the guy that answered the phone when I told him I needed to get a hold of my husband because I was going into labor.  He tried paging Matt but found out he hadn't even scanned in yet.  I can't remember the order but in the next 15 minutes I called my mom, Pam, Matt (several times) and my OB office.  When I finally talked to Matt I could barely hold a conversation...I then called my neighbor to see if she would take Fiona until Pam got to the house.  Thank god for my neighbors!

Matt got to the house a few minutes later and we took off to the hospital...in the clothes that I had woken up in and without any bags packed (remember that was on the agenda for the day!)  I had only ever been to the ER at this hospital so I had no idea where the birthing center was.  We stopped at the gate and Matt asked the parking guy...."well, you go up to where the road splits and then go left and then the first right and the parking lot on your left will be closest to the entrance....oh wait, that's not right".  (this is not a very big campus at all...and at this point I was about to jump across the Matt and strangle the guy!).  Eventually we got to the right place,  Matt started to park the car and all I could get out was "you got to get me to the entrance".

 My OB's office had called and given them a heads up that I would be coming in, but even with the warning I think they were a little unprepared.  As Matt was wheeling me back to the room I tried telling the nurse that I was 4 cm the day before, I wanted an epidural and I was GBS + and needed to start abx right away.  We got into the room and I got into a gown and then sat there for what felt like forever (probably only 5 minutes).  Apparently they had called another nurse in to help after my OB's office let them know I was coming.  As soon as my nurse Amber got there things started to roll.  She checked me and I was at 7.5 cm (I think she was being nice, once you are past 8 they usually say it's too late to get an epidural).  But then we found out that the anesthesiologist was in a c-section and wouldn't be available until it was too late for me.  I was a little bummed out but could barely think straight to worry about it.  Then this goofy older guy comes bounding into my room, "I hear someone needs an epidural?".  He was from the ER and was filling in for the OB doc.  The next 20 minutes were from a movie....he wasn't familiar with the paperwork or the set up in the labor/delivery department.  He kept asking the nurse where things were and tried to make a joke of it by saying "oh I've done this once or twice before" or "they did just drag me from my box under the bridge".  He obviously doesn't sub in the OB department very often or he would have known women in labor do not have a sense of humor when they are in pain!  Luckily Amber, my nurse, had gotten my IV in place in record speed and kept Mr. Funny man in line and I started finally feeling some relief.

My MD came in to check me right after the epidural was in place to see where we were.  I was now 9 cm and baby was way down.  She decided to give me 30-40 minutes for the epidural to totally kick in and to get a little break now that the pain was going away.  As she was checking me she said she felt the amniotic sac and told me to push a little to reposition something and all of a sudden my water broke....all over my MD.  I swear it fountained up a foot into the air....she had to go change her clothes :)  She came back in about 40 minutes later to see how I was doing and if she had time to go back to the office to see a few patients.  Nope!  Baby Declan was ready to be born.  I think it was a good thing that I had experience pushing before.  The epidural worked great this time (with Fiona I had one but it didn't work), so I couldn't feel anything but pressure.  Ten contractions later our little man came out screaming.  He looked very different from Fiona since he was so early and she had cooked a while longer.  But even at 37 wks 4 days he was perfectly ready for the world.  He was 8 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long with a 14.75 inch head....a full term infant :)  He scored a 9 on his APGARs and they put him on my chest from minute 1 and they didn't even check him out until 20 minutes later (obviously not worried).

Unfortunately, due to my quick labor (<3 hrs total, <2 hrs at the hospital), there wasn't time to get the abx into my system and so the pediatrician had us stay 48 hrs at the hospital :(  I had been hoping to get out at least by the next morning...especially since it was such a gorgeous day!  But, we did have lots of visitors to keep us company.  Matt went and got Fiona later that afternoon (she had been with her babysitter at the beach all day) and she wanted to hold her baby brother! We have a video of her "teaching" him the ABC song...super cute and happy she was so excited.

6/14/12
Since this has taken me weeks to start and days to work on, I think I will just post what I have and hope to get more down later.  I apologize for the length...if you even made it through all that, I really just wanted to get what I could remember down (since I have already forgotten some). 

All is going well, working on our morning routine with 2 kids. So far Fiona wants to "keep him", just waiting for the "can we give him back" day :) 

Happy Father's day a little early....I'll try and post some more recent photos soon!

Happy Easter

Just wanted to post a couple Easter photos taken today :)  Hope you all enjoy the day!

March Birthday Wine Weekend

So I have several trips/activity pics I still need to post but figured I start with the most recent and add the others as I go....especially since I can at least remember the most recent much better :)

This weekend we celebrated our March birthdays.....Kathy (50), Penny (53), Bethany (30) and Bryce (30)...and since we had some big milestone ones we needed a big party!  Vans were rented and we set out for WINE COUNTRY!  Some of the non-wine drinking boys had an awesome golf/bowling day...sorry I don't have pics to post of that!  But here are a few from the wine-o's (there are a lot more...if interested, let me know and I'll send them out to you).

 The "older" van trying to do a Chinese fire drill...it took them 3+ minutes to get out of and back into the van...the "younger" van showed them how it was done....less than 20 seconds and piggy back to boot!

 group shot at the first winery

 group shot at the 2nd stop

3rd Stop...can you see just how nice the day was!

 Me, Pam and Declan (28 weeks)

 Brad and Kaia

Birthday girl and Jacob

 Bethany and Randy

Can't tell these two are related :)

 Kelly, Pam and Bethany

 

 Group shot at our 3rd and final stop

 

Sisters

 

Penny (birthday girl) and her girls, Kelly and Jill

The Cakes, designed and made by Krystal....you can see how amazing they are!

 

 if you don't get the gun reference...it is a 30/30 (I had to be told) since both Bethany and Bryce were turning 30....some people are just too clever :)

So that was the fastest I've gotten trip pics done in a long time...I will try and get some other recent trips up soon.

On the baby front...we have about 12 weeks to go.  Everything is looking and going great.  This little monkey moves a lot more than I remember Fiona doing at the same point.  Fiona is already talking to her baby brother and telling me what she will play with him and how she is going to help me out...we shall see :)  

Happy Spring everyone!

It's a.........

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Boy!  Declan Royce was not shy at all :)