What does the future hold?

Recently, I have been thinking about my job / career. I had a very good talk with Hannah the other day and think I have figured out some things, or at least think I am in the right direction. I'm going to try and duplicate what we talked about so I am going to start from the beginning.

I have pretty much been working my whole life. When I was 15 I got my first job working at a drive through convenience store in the tiny town I lived in. I started to save money the best I could and I believe I learned the value of money and work. In the subsequent years I have worked as a stocker, waiter, window washer, cart pusher, fast food worker, call center representative, customer support, salesman, cashier, field worker, sand blaster, welder assistant, graphic designer, musician, IT technician, and of course 2 years as a missionary. Work is not a foreign concept to me or maybe better to say I have no idea what life is like without working. Even in the few times when I was not working it usually only took a few days before I was board out of my mind. Most, if not all, of these jobs were not taken in the hopes of finding joy in my work, but were, in fact, taken to pay the bills. What I realized in talking to Hannah is that in the years of working at these jobs I completely forgot or perhaps never learned that you could actually WANT to go to work; that it might actually be possible to go to your job and feel accomplished or feel genuinely happy there. For years my job was just a means to stay alive and hold off until the days off, but I have realized that that is just meager living. I need to find something that fulfills me.

There is a slight problem with this. It has been said that you should find something you are passionate about and make a career out of it. Unfortunately, my three passions in life are my family, music, and art. My family being the most important.

I love music and have actually taken much of my time to learn quite a bit about it. As far back as I can remember I have been playing some sort of instrument. In order to make it in the music industry you really have to be willing to give up quite a bit. One of the biggest things that I have discovered is that you have to give up much of your family life and that is just not something I well ever be willing to give up. So that leave out music, and no, I don't want to teach it either! ;)

With art I would not have to sacrifice my family, however, the pay for any type of artist, graphic or otherwise, is not much to support a family on. The only artists that seem to make a decent amount of money are the ones that have been working at it for years and have established their artistry. I originally thought this would be the best field to go into and actually got a degree in graphic design. The problem here is that everyone is a "graphic designer" or at least thinks they are. When you are a small business owner and you need some graphic work done you are looking for the cheapest way possible. Who are you going to pick; the guy down the street that has played with Photoshop for a while and will make you a logo for free or the graphic designer that is going to charge you $20-$30 an hour? Graphic designers are a dime a dozen and they are all trying to make a name for themselves.

I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I can at least see the direction I should go, and that is encouraging. I'm just confused is all. The good news is that I am hopeful!... Don't ask me tomorrow because that might change, but right now I am good! :)

Your thoughts are appreciated.

~ Ron Beck

Shane: 1 month update

One of my best friends posts when her kids have significant milestones. So I am going to try and follow this format. I really like it and it causes me to have to reflect over the past 4 weeks to see how a little person has grown so much.

Hope you enjoy!

The day he was born.

This is where we started out!

Mama holding him in the operating room.

 

In the recovery room. Our first family portrait.

Still in the recovery room. Look how tuckered he is. He just got yanked out of his mama. I would be tired too.

His second day here! With some of the visitors that came. We were lucky to have just the right amount come and visit. Thanks to all who came and were conscious of the time you stayed. His mama really appreciated not having to kick anyone out for overstaying their welcome. (Love you all!)

Peacefully slumbering in our room.

The real audience catcher. Seriously, how can he looks so cute so early?!

Papa Mark!

and Minky! (Yes, you can call him Tre)

The day we got home. It was our 2nd anniversary so this is Shane and us. Please don't mind the puffy face. Because I had an IV with tons of fluid and salt, it took a couple of days for my puffiness to go down. Nanny and Poppy arrived the next day.

 He was blessed on 6-16-2013. He was 9 days old. The members of his blessing circle were: Ronald D. Beck Jr. (he gave the blessing, this is is Daddy), Kelly Fielding (Bishop), Laron Fisk, Mark Temperini, Ronald D. Beck Sr., Robert J. Richins Jr. It was a simple, sweet blessing. We are very lucky to have this little man in our presence. He has a great work to do.

Daddy getting him ready for the big day.

Everyone in the Family. (Missing Papa and Nana Miller, but they were there in Spirit)

Nanny and Poppy Beck

Sweet expression.

 And the party after the blessing..... More like lunch.

3 generation picture. Maybe we can photoshop Grandpa Larry Beck into the picture.

Minky is holding him.

Minky and Papa. Love it!

Poppy is holding him. 

We didn't really take pictures after Nanny and Poppy left. Mainly because Hannah is a photographer, but doesn't always think about taking the camera out.

So, these are the latest ones.

Love you all! Excited for this next month and all the adventures that are coming.

Afternoon of the 4th of July. We had the sliding glass door open and he slept through all of the noises.

And this is today: July 7th, 2013. Happy 1 month old baby. Sorry for the poor resolution. It was from my camera phone that is old school.

Our Little Shane

HE IS FINALLY HERE!!

Hannah woke up at around 3 am and told me she was having steady contractions and may need to go to the hospital. Instinctively  I jumped out of bed; ready to go right away. She assured me that he was not coming right away so I was able to take a quick shower and ran to the store to pick up a few things.

At this point, Hannah was just very uncomfortable when she had a contraction. They had been happening every 3-4 minutes and hurt enough that she was having trouble talking. When we got to the hospital (5 am) and had her checked she was dilated to a 3 and and was about 80% effaced. They were still unsure if she was in full labor so they monitored her for a few hours.

Around 8 am she was officially admitted. I tried my best to help her by walking with her through the halls and pressing on her lower back to help ease the pain. By this point her pain was pretty strong and it was very difficult for me to watch her in pain. Her contractions were a steady 2-3 mins apart by this point. However Shane's heart beat was pretty steady and not being affected by the contractions. Later we learned that is not really normal. It meant he wasn't low enough for the contractions to push him down to help him come out.

At 10 am the midwife came in and explained that we could either wait it out or go ahead and break Hannah's water and see if that would help him descend. We went ahead and broke her water and all hell broke lose. Side note: They found meconuim in the bag of water. Warning sign #1.

After only about 5-10 minutes she began to have very intense labor pains and began to scream in pain. I have never felt so much love and anguish at the same time. For most of the contractions I kept myself together pretty well watching my wife go through such pain. It wasn't until Hannah said through gritted teeth and tears "Ron, I love you" that I lost it. My eyes began to flow with tears of love for my wonderful wife and the struggles she was going through for our family. I couldn't believe that in the middle of such pain and anguish she would exclaim her love for me and not hate me.

As time went on Hannah became more and more, let's say, "Intense" with her word usage. Which is completely understandable. The nurses told us that on average women usually have about 1-2 minutes between contractions. That is what gives them the energy to make it through the next spike. Hannah, however, was having 1-2 minutes long contractions happening about every 20-30 seconds, giving her no time to recuperate. She was basically going 1 step forward then 3 steps back. She screamed for the pain to stop and they gave her fentanyl to numb the pain. It honestly did not seem to work very much, as she was still yelling obscenities. She tried moving around, getting in the bath, sat on a blow-up ball, and lots of yelling all in the effort to dull the pain. They did little good.

Much to my, and definitely her, satisfaction we finally gave in and got her an epidural at around 11 am. This was a difficult endeavor because she was forced to stay completely still and was still having very intense contractions. She was just a tad drugged up as this time and was pretty loopy; my favorite being while she was in the peak of a contraction she started mumbling/yelling the word "Water park". I asked "You want to go to a water park?" She looked straight at me with her eyes about to bulge out of her head and just said "Mmmhmm, Lets go".  One of my favorites, as was our nurses', was she tried yelling, "Oh, FuuuuuuuuDDDDGGEEE! This hurts!" I tried really hard not to laugh, and she said, "Don't laugh at me! I have to get this epidural in." I could see the nurses laughing too. (Hannah can now laugh about it, but it was pretty intense). It then became procedure to plan out next vacation every time she had a contraction after that. When the epidural finally kicked in she exclaimed how much she loved it..... about 20 times.... Within the first 5 minutes.

With the contractions manageable and having been up since 3 am I was finally able to relax. I no longer had to see her scream in pain and she was comfortable. I decided to take a short tap while I could before the baby came. I was awoken by a few nurses, the nurse-midwife, and Hannah all talking. They explained to me that while I was asleep the nurse-midwife had checked Hannah again and found that she was only at a 4-5 and that Shane's head was coming down at an angle. Warning sign #2. It had been ruffly 12 hours of consistent contractions and he was not progressing. She had actually started contractions at midnight, but didn't tell me until she woke up to super strong ones at 3. We also found out that Hannah had developed a 102 fever and they were concerned it would transfer to the baby. Warning sign #3. It was because of this that he eventually had to have an IV in his arm. We were both very scared and was unsure of what the future would hold. Hannah, being the beautiful spirit she is, asked to have a blessing, however, I was in no condition to give one. We called out home teacher and within about 5 mins they were there. Brother Reynolds gave Hannah a beautiful blessing that proved to calm her more then it did me. They also gave me a blessing of comfort. This is when we decided she needed to have a c-section in order to be safe for both her and Shane.

They prepared her and I to transferred her to the OR. While they were preparing her I was forced to wait in a room for them to come get me. After the hustle and bustle of getting ready I was all alone in a room with only my thoughts to keep me company. As any father or husband can attest, when something happens to your loved ones the only thoughts that run through your head are the most terrible outcomes you can think of.  I prayed to my Father at this time to please not take her or my baby's life. I was so scared that the only comfort I had was to pray to the one person who could make a difference. Looking back, I don't know if he answered my prayers or if he never intended to take them and just looked down at me saying "Oh Child, worry not" Either way all I could do was ask. So I did.

When they took me into the operating room Hannah was laying down with that blue curtain blocking what the doctors where doing to her stomach. I could have looked if I wanted to and see what exactly they were doing, but I knew I was already about to explode with emotion and did not need to that to give me more. I just sat down beside her and held her head and hands. Then it happened.

While we were looking into each others eyes we hear that distinct beautiful cry. Every parent knows exactly of what I am talking about. That cry that immediately tells you are are no longer just your own. You are a parent. He is presented to us and I look over to see my gorgeous child. Nothing can prepare you for that moment. The wait was over. Shane Dean Beck was here.

This is the journey of our first child. Or at least the end of the wait and the beginning of the life. After this point it was all downhill. We were blessed with no more complications and Hannah is recovering fast. We are now home and enjoying our new life. To finish up, here are a few more pictures and a video. Love you all.

The champion and her prize.

Our new family

In the attempt to take the last picture, the nurse taking the photo didn't  know how to use our camera and ended up taking this picture of us laughing.

We had originaly named Shane "Shane Richins Dean Beck" However we changed it to just Shane Dean beck.

How we started.....Ha, Ha, Ha

Ron doesn't like pictures (actually I don't remember) but he didn't like getting his picture for the ward directory, so I had to go to his house and get his picture for the ward directory.

Yeah, who could turn down this face? The next time we said Hey to each other was in October some time. I said, "Hey Ron!" and he was like, "Who are you again?" What a great pick up line, eh? I reminded him of who I was and how I knew him, "I'm Hannah. I took your picture for the ward directory...." "Oh, yeah. Well, Hey."

We would say hey every once in a while. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas time, Ron and Joe came to church. I was excited because I hadn't seen Joe in a long time. I sat by Joe and Ron and then left for some reason. He said that was the first time he was like, wait where did she go?, but that didn't really spark anything other than a thought.

Fast Forward to end of January....Ron invited me to come in the van (Chris' van) and so we talked the whole way to Alpine and all the way back. Super flirted and lots of chatter, but after an invite to watch a movie (Ron invited me) and I turned it down because I had to work early the next day, he was like, "You're such an old woman!"

President's day 2011, we had FHE and then played games afterwards. While a lot of flirty went on that whole night, Ron was secretly trying to ask me out. After getting home and starting my cleaning check, Ron texted me and asked me on a date. I said yes. We went to the store as we were planning our date and talked till 3 in the morning, wanting to talk more, but we had school the next morning. We went on a date on Wednesday and 27 days later we were engaged! After lots of dates and time to plan (3 months, just a little too long) we got married in Logan, Utah.

and held a beautiful reception the next day! Then it was honeymoon....of course, no pictures!

Thus we continued making a new life together.