Broken Dreams of Pink and Laughter

Today our world changed abruptly.

For the last few months we have been eagerly awaiting the birth of our baby girl.  In an unexpected whirlwind we had been chosen to be adoptive parents.  We couldn’t have been more excited. 

Tonight we got the call that our birth mother had given birth prematurely and our daughter had been born stillborn.

We had 51 days left until her due date.  51 days.  It seemed like such a short amount of time.  She was further along than Lori’s own brother when he had been born early.  He is a healthy adult today--no ill effects from his early entry into this world.  How could this have happened. Every check-up had shown a healthy baby—we have pictures of her ultrasound on our refrigerator.  Just today our family all began a contest guessing what her actual due date would be.  We didn’t know it would be today...

The news came through the ministry that had helped connect us with our daughter's biological mother.  We told our boys.  There were lots of tears. The tears have not ended yet.  We were asked what name we wanted on her death certificate--did we want the name we had discussed?  How did we want to proceed?

We didn't want to proceed.  We just wanted to wake up from this unwelcome nightmare.

Yad Vashem is the name of the Israeli Holocaust Memorial.  It means ‘a place and a name.’  I’m not trying to comment on enormous human atrocities like the Holocaust—nevertheless I found myself thinking of the meaning of those words tonight.  A name and a place. My daughter deserves both a place and a name.

Her name is Kathryn Ella Grace Bassham.  She is loved. In this life she will never get to hear me say those words to her but she is loved nonetheless. 

Today, her place is with the Savior.  My only hope is in His mercy.

While that is her true place we will travel to California to look at her tiny form and to arrange for her burial-- to give her a place here, as well.  It’s the only tangible way I know to show my love for her.  I won’t get to watch her take her first steps or walk her down the aisle but I will make sure she is provided for in death.

I don’t know what this will look like.  Legally, we didn't have the chance to finalize the adoption.  Though she is our daughter but we don’t know what sort of red tape or policy we will have to navigate. . .

How can you so badly miss someone you’ve never actually met?

Yes, our world changed today.  When we thought of our lives from March forward it always included a little girl with her two older brothers.  Four months ago, we didn’t even know she existed.  Today we can’t imagine that our life will not include her.

There is a lot we don’t know.  How to pay for our remaining adoption expenses we've already incurred, how honor her in death, how to go about disassembling her bedroom.  How to move forward with any grace or dignity, or . . . how to move at all.

We also pray for Kate’s birth mother and birth father.  They are grieving.  We pray God will minister to them.

We praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We do not understand but we trust His leading and look to Him for comfort.   Our hearts are heavy but God still reigns and He is still good.  All the time.

I miss you little Kate.  I’ll have to wait a little longer to actually meet you.  I love you.

Wrestling 2014

It's that time of year again when the mats are rolled out and kids wrestling begins.  This year Garrett has been joined by his younger brother Matthew.

Garrett:
Garrett says he loves wrestling.  I'm not sure whether this is an actual love, or if he 'loves' it because he knows it was dad's sport.  Whatever the case, this spring, like the two before he has eagerly requested to participate.  He continues to get better, learning moves and starting to get a feel for he sport.  By my count, he is 6-0 this year.  It's hard to prove this because the volunteer referees and scorekeepers are often clueless.  Nevertheless its a lot of fun--of course if you are taking pictures of him while he wrestles there's an equal chance he'll concentrate on the match as mug for the camera--we'll blame mom for that.

Mathew:
If Garrett loves wrestling because of his dad, Matthew loves it because of his brother.  This is his first foray into the sport.  He says he loves matches but doesn't really care for practices.  I think he's 4-2 on the year.  Although often what transpires between 4-5 year-olds can hardly be classified as wrestling.  It's more like entangled spinning or aggressive dancing.  Still, as the season has progressed, Matthew has started to figure out the objectives of the sport.  Last match he even tried a half-nelson.  YAY Matthew, we're so proud of you.

Pictures 2-2013

Its been a while since I've added some pictures.  Here you go, feast your eyes to a random assortment of our family happenings.

This is the boys dressing up for Kids Club 80s night.  Matthew is a Star Wars wearing mini Mr T. in training while Garret is sporting a Voltron shirt with a hairdo that seems to be a cross between Flock of Seagulls and Billy Idol.

The snow is now quickly melting.  Thanks to a couple days of rain and warmer temperatures.  However a week ago there was still plenty of the white stuff for a fun day out with the boys.

In other news Garrett is participating in wrestling for the second year

While Matthew is loving his first foray into organized sports, playing soccer.

Of course Matthew turned four.  Where has the time gone?

And Garrett decided to dress up as Abraham Lincoln.  Or so he told us.

And then the boys found other ways to entertain themselves.

Love this crazy family.

Where Have You Gone Dan Gable?

It's been a while since I've blogged, here, on my own little blog.  I've done some fill-in work for my wife on her blog and I've written plenty of articles for my church, but I've sadly neglected my own little piece of cyberspace.

I need to return.  My two readers are depending on me.

Actually I'm not blogging for anyone today.  I am on a rant.  I'm ticked off.  Angry.  I could type out those little symbols that they put over cartoon characters heads.  Today was going absolutely great until I happened across a headline online while looking for something entirely different.

Wrestling Dropped From Olympics.

You can read the article too.  It's hard to type when you'd rather throw something.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  You are going to drop one of the Olympics oldest sports, a sport that a great man nations compete in, from Russia to Iran, to China, to Cuba to the United States . . .  you're going to drop it so you can add something new?

One of the comments on that article said it nicely, "Ribbon dancing and trampoline jumping are now Olympic sports but wrestling is out?  What a joke."

When they deep sixed softball (which I was against) it was supposedly because there weren't enough countries who could compete.  Not the case here.  It is a sport that any nation can compete in.  AAAGGHH!

I wish I knew where to contact the IOC and blow up their inbox with petitions and complaints.  Maybe I'll have to settle for hanging them in effigy.

But instead of ending this in a venomous tirade I decided to suggest some new changes that the IOC should consider making.

They should drop the rowing competitions and replace it with aerial freestyle (where the contestants jump out of a plane and perform as many insane tricks as they can before pulling their parachute).

They should drop the shooting competitions and replace it with competitive web surfing.

They should drop bicycling and replace it with an International Dance Off.

They should drop diving and replace it with team Karaoke.

They should drop swimming and replace it with a Settlers of Catan tournament.

They should drop synchronized swimming and replaced it with a Battle Bots competition.  (OK I would actually go for that but I'd feel really bad for the athletes who have been training for years for the next Olympics).

They SHOULD replace rythmic dancing with a Jousting Competition

Of course they will never touch their media darlings: track and gymnastics.  But I might not even watch those next time.  I am so mad.  Maybe I'll be working on a time machine to go back to the original Olympics.  Where, you know, wrestling was one of events (the number of which you could count on your fingers).

I'm mad.  But I am slightly worried for the IOC when true supermen and former Olympic and collegiate wrestlers go looking of them.  You know men like Dan Gable, John Smith, Aleksandr Karelin, Cael Sanderson, Alexander Medved and Randy Couture go looking for them.

Happy hunting.

I did notice they didn't axe the shooting competition. You DON'T want those guys looking for you.

Christmas Candids, part 2

As Christmas approached there was first Garrett's preschool program (he's seen here as the Happiest Christmas Tree).

Then there was the Church Christmas program

Finally Christmas Eve arrived!

The boys were excited

And the crowning achievement was the gift of a new bunk bed

Here's Matthew showing off how much he likes the new bed.

And the next morning came and Santa had brought a snowboard . . .

and tools!

What a great time of year!

Christmas Candids, part 1

Christmas has come and gone and I finally have the chance to update this blog with some of the Holiday happenings in our world. To start off I begin with some photos of the boys in the early days of December as they awaited the big day.

Here's Matthew with the one of the decorations.

Pirates at Christmas, cause that's how we roll around here

Garrett & Matthew getting ready as Christmas approaches

The boys hamming it up and having a good time in front of the camera



And one more of the boys together

Carnivals, Costumes, Candy and such . . .

Every year we have an annual Harvest Festival at our church. It usually coincides with Halloween and is a fun, safe carnival style event for kids. This year it was a couple days early as we really didn't feel like hosting the event on a Monday night. There are lots of game booths including the ring toss, bean bag toss, and many many more. There is one game where little participants can throw a ball through the openings of characters from the Bible story of Daniel and the Lions' den. As we were closing up shop the targets became costumes for Garrett, Matthew, and a couple of their friends.
The harvest festival in the rear view mirror our two boys donned their costumes in the early afternoon, October 31st, to got out and find candy. Here are G & M as cast members from How to Train your Dragon
While Matthew wasn't exactly a toothless replica, we do believe he was a cute little dragon.
Luckily the nearby shopping complex has their own Trick or Treat event every year. So the boys went out and invaded Barnes and Noble, Rubios, Jamba Juice, Old Navy and many more establishments. They took in quite a haul.
The best part of the night, however, was when we got home. We didn't go out into the neighborhood, but we still were ready to be invaded by hordes of candy seeking costume clad children. Garrett wanted to hand out the candy. Really, I just had to be nearby (Lori was distracted watching her beloved Chargers play).

Garrett had more fun handing out candy than he had getting candy earlier in the day. I was so proud of him to be excited to be the candy-giver. He truly was more blessed giving than receiving.
And that brought October to an end. But less than a week later, Garrett attended a birthday party that included a face painter. So the G-man became a tiger. A pretty cool looking tiger if you ask me. (For the record Matthew was there as well, but he wanted no part of the face painting).