Mason James Ryan

Little One

8/5/15

Today I heard about you. Your daddy told me. He is happy and I am too.

Pops was driving the big truck when your daddy told us. He is happy too.

I can't wait to meet you.

I prayed for you tonight, and for your mommy. I asked God to make you strong and healthy. I asked God to take care of your mommy while she takes care of you. I ask God to help your daddy be a good daddy like Pops. 

You are so loved already, Little One.

8/6/15

I can't stop thinking about you. I remember when your daddy was in my belly. I loved him before I knew him, just like now with you. 

I love you and God does too. 

11/16/15

Today I found out that you are a boy. I really thought that you might be. I can't wait to meet you in person.

11/17/15

You are Mason. I love you.

3/24/16

Any day now you will be here. I cannot wait to see your face. I love you so much already. 

Mason James Ryan (Buster) was due to be born on April 6th, 2016. But the time was just not right yet. He didn't come.

On Saturday morning, the 9th, at 8:30 Tom and Sophia went to the Dr for another checkup. From there they went to the hospital where later that afternoon Sophia's labor was induced. 

It was slow going and by midnight she still hadn't dilated beyond 1 centimeter.

On Sunday afternoon many family members and best friend, Jessica, kept company as we waited for further progress. 

By the time the third shift of nurses came in she had progressed to 4 centimeters.

She was given some meds, the lights were dimmed and she was told to sleep.

A little before 3am on April 11th, 2016 she was dilated fully and ready to begin pushing.

The baby was moving nicely down the birth canal in the beginning but then didn't come further.

 The nurses tried several positions to help but in the end just went back to the original position. 

Mason was born at 3:46 am. He was 8 lb. 11 oz, and 21 inches long.

During labor Sophia spiked a fever of 102 degrees  so the baby was put on in antibiotic as a precaution.

Sophia had labored long and hard but she did a fabulous job. I am so proud of her.

I am glad that I got to be there for his birth. I have been in love with him already for over 40 weeks. And after seeing him, my heart has melted. 

Mom and Buster were released from the hospital on Wednesday morning. Tom had been with her every minute except for a bit when he ran home for clean clothes.

Jessica

Angie, Sophia's mom

Trying to rest

Baby's heartbeat and contractions

Getting checked

Roll over, maybe it will speed things

Fully dilated

Tug of war

Hank, Sophia' s dad. Waiting through delivery

Jessica watching closely.

Let's try squatting, Dr is here.

Dr says, it's time

Cleaning the baby

Doing footprints

Jiggling for deep breaths

Skin to skin to help Mason 

First family picture

After all that, fix the hair

Fever rash

Later that afternoon

Uncle Andrew

Noni

Still on iv antibiotics

Cuteness

Look at that hair

Daddy is in love

Pappy Hank

Pops

Jessica, Mason and Sophia

Aunt Starla

Oops, loose diaper on circumcision day

Well, hey there

Going home

Long boy

Daddy snuggles

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. (John 16:21 ESV)

Please be diplomatic

Our predispatch load makes me mad! The load offer stated that it was a secret load, and that it was also a refrigerated, hazmat load going near Chicago. The money was a little low so I negotiated the pay and accepted the load for a rate suitable for those conditions. Pops and I  have set rates for each thing and try to get close that amount.

However when the dispatch came out, it turns out that we are headed to a NUCLEAR PLANT!!!! We charge extra for that because of all the extra time consumed in the inspection process. And the notes say, "you will be thoroughly inspected. They will go through all belongings and may not put things back. Please be diplomatic."

We know from past experience that if you call to be taken off a load, you do not get another dispatch until that load is accepted by someone else. And then you only get offered the bad loads that no one wants. 

Now don't misunderstand. We don't mind the load, we are upset that we weren't told all the details.

I did call our company to let them know that we were upset and that we were not cool about our stuff getting ransacked and not put back. I am so very not cool about that.

We basically were told to just deal with it and not say anything.

😡😤😡😤😡😤😡😤

A whole lot of stress for no reason. The items we were carrying went into a warehouse on the outer perimeter of the plant and we had NO inspection.

😛😓😛😛😓😛😓😛😓

Our company is in the beginning stages of reorganizing internally. Our loads were groups by cat agonies before such as hazardous, refrigerated, government, airport, fine arts and delicates, etc. These were subgroups of two other groups called surface and white glove. 

Surface loads are basic freight with little or no subgroups except for perhaps hazardous. 

White glove are loads that require additional care, time, effort, paperwork, etc.

Now, however, they are reorganizing and many of the drivers aren't understanding the new concepts (us included) and there is little or no communication to explain the new procedures. So this is causing EXTREME FRUSTRATION. 

I am so glad that we are going home this week. I can't hardly stand these changes coming now on the heels of 3 of the slowest months we had, financially.

So it is apparent that under the new arrangements we will not know if we are going into a nuclear plant until AFTER we accept and are dispatched. 

We accepted what used to look like a plain WG load, meaning that a general (easy) load requiring a bit of extra care. But it came out as yet another pickup at a nuclear power plant. 

We were very upset but it was delivering in the state of Virginia on Thursday and we will just deadhead home from there.

I wish I could describe in detail the process of us getting into these favilities but security agreements and discretionary keep us from doing so. But let me tell you, it took us over two hours to pick up one pallet of material.

To us, that seems like more than plain WG, and we would have charged more to do this load under the former system. 

I drove in the drizzly rain for the rest of my shift. Pops napped after we got on the highway. 

During the night as Pops was driving we had a very close call. I was sleeping on my belly on the bed. And suddenly came awake. Pops had braked, hard. When my eyes opened there was a red car sitting, stopped in the road right smack in front of us.

Pops said the car was stopped at the light but then shot out right in front of us, almost seeming to be intentional. I did not fly off the bed and not one thing fell off our counters, yet everything that we store under the bed (gallons of water, case of bottled water, bag of potatoes and several pairs of shoes) all came forward to the front of the truck.

Thank goodness for good brakes and quick reflexes. However, Pops was so shaken by this that he pulled to the side of the road and sat for about an hour to regain composure.

Ugh! We are so ready to go home. We haven't been home since December 28th.

Getting the load off consisted of driving into a small business' gravel lot and having the forklift remove the pallet. 

Now we are going home. Yay!

Arrived at home late Thursday evening. I got to have some more ch needed pet therapy right away.

I am going to stop here and write two more separate blogs in a day or so about our home time including the birth of Mason!!

Continue to keep us in your prayers.

The Smokey Mountains

There is not a lot to tell about this past week. It was kind of a ho hum kind of week. And I also have some of the pictures out of sequence.

We began our week in Greensburg, NC. We were still feeling pretty uplifted from a fabulous church service the day before. We got to a big chemical place and didn't know where to enter. Once we finally figured it out, the dock workers were a little impatient. Their words were impolite and not very professional. Great, I hate when somebody having a bad day ruins my "good so far" day. It didn't take long to load us and we were on our way. 

I was driving first and we were headed to Tennessee, Knoxville region. So it was a trip across the Smokey Mountains. 

Pops finished up the drive and we got there late at night. In the morning we got unloaded then had to deadhead back across the Smokies to our next pickup. Again I was driving. It is ALWAYS a scenic trip albeit SLOW, every time. 

After our pickup in Spartanburg, it was yet again, back over the mountains. My dad used to sing me a song about The bear that went over the mountain, to see what he could see. Well, we about seen it, now, 3 crossings in two days.

http://youtu.be/QAW2GSwUnNo

Pops took over the driving then and when we reached the beautiful city of Louisville, KY. I noticed that the bridges were lit. I didn't have time to grab my camera so I had to use my phone. It was just gorgeous to see.

After delivering in Madison, we took a short run from Madison to Minneapolis. Then we had a deadhead to Fargo, ND for a pickup. 

The smoky Smokies

North Carolina, that's all I'm saying.

These 3 pictures are from a rock/mud slide that completely closed Interstate 75 in Tennessee for over a month. Southbound lanes are open now and one northbound lane is open. Geez, a good part of that mountain just slid right off.

Cranberry bog in Wisconsin

Mississippi River, Wisconsin

After picking up in Fargo, I got to drive us back across Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

Mansion at Somerset, PA

Somerset County Courthouse. Somerset, PA is my hometown. I was born and raised here. There is so much beauty in and around Somerset. Wisconsin reminds me very much of parts of Pennsylvania. I think that's why I always enjoy the trip through there.

Our load from Fargo came to a suburb of Philadelphia. 

It was Friday. We were predispatched for Monday morning picking up in New Jersey. So we headed that direction and settled in at the TA truckstop in Paulsboro, NJ. The sky got so red and a thunderstorm kicked up that evening. It didn't last long, and then the sky was pretty.

We did not find a suitable church to assemble with this week, so we tuned in to a live stream service from www.goldenisleschristianchurch.org with Joe Guthrie, out of Brunswick, GA. We left him know the night before that we would be streaming the service and he mentioned that fact to the congregation. What a tool the Internet and live streaming can be. It has been good for us several times. 

Continue to keep us in prayer, please.