After raising almost $18k on AdoptTogether, Rob and Angie Ashe took the 15 hour flight to pick up their little girl Fiona from China. When asked why they chose to endure the gauntlet of hardships to adopt a child with special needs from China, Rob simply replies "Because my daughter was in China."
CHLA - The Unstoppable Fiona Ashe →
Don’t believe what Fiona Ashe may tell you. Her parents did not purchase her at Target, though after hearing that claim enough times, her mother finally agreed to it.
“Two weeks ago in the car,” Angie Ashe says, “she was like, ‘Where did you buy me from?’ I just kind of chuckled. ‘We didn’t buy you from anywhere. Do you mean where were you born?’ ‘No, where did you buy me?’ I couldn’t answer her correctly. I kept saying, ‘You were born in China; we adopted you.’ Finally, I said, ‘You want me to say we bought you from Target?’ She just smiled. ‘Yeah, you bought me from Target.’ OK!”
As charming a story as that would make, the truth is equal to it—and considerably more plausible. It starts with longstanding plans that Angie and her husband, Rob, had made to adopt a child. “That was on the table even before we got married,” Angie says. Their intentions became more focused after their daughter Elliot was born with arthrogryposis, a disease that disrupts joint movement. Elliot’s case is extreme: Born with her arms stuck straight and her legs bent, she has been a patient at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles since infancy, undergoing numerous surgeries and years of physical therapy.
The Mighty - The 10 Magical Moments in an Otherwise Tough Disneyland Trip →
We were tired. It was a long day.
We had decided to take our daughters for a surprise afternoon trip down to Disneyland. They love that place more than anything any of us has ever loved in our lives. Our visits to Disneyland are usually magical. We vowed to never take preschoolers, yet somehow we’ve been there four times in the last year.
This trip was different. The drive was an unusually brutal two-hour journey that got us there in the late afternoon. It was also our first trip to Disneyland with our oldest daughter in a wheelchair. She was born with a condition called arthrogryposis, and she has to wear braces in order to walk. She enjoys walking, but she’s been recovering from a major surgery and hasn’t been allowed to walk much over the last three months.
This was also our first trip to Disneyland for our youngest daughter’s prosthetic leg. She was born with a condition called amniotic banding syndrome which has left her without a usable right foot. Thanks to surgery in December, she’s now running around with her new “robot leg,” as it’s called in our household.
The Mighty - I Used to Hate the Beach. Then, My Daughter Came Along and Changed Everything. →
I used to hate the beach. I loathed the bright, hot sun that makes my eyes malfunction and my pale skin burn brighter than the reddest lobster after three minutes of exposure. I couldn’t stand the smell of the sea, a smell that can only be described as ten-day-old seaweed covered in iodine and set on fire in my nostrils. I was never comfortable with the fact that no matter how careful I was, I was always a magnet for small packets of sand that found their way into my car and laundry for days to come.
Then, I became my daughter’s father.
The Hollywood Reporter - 6 Rare Illnesses That Hollywood Has Put in the Spotlight — and 1 It Hasn't (Yet) →
Rob Ashe's daughter was 4 days old when he first saw the word "arthrogryposis," written on her incubator in the NICU. Elliot, now 4, had been born with severe contraction in her major joints, resulting in extremely low muscle tone. Only one in 3,000 newborns has the condition. "There still isn't a ton of research," says Ashe, an Emmy-nominated editor on TBS' Conan. Geneticist Dr. Judith G. Hall, who has studied arthrogryposis extensively, had one big piece of advice for Ashe when she learned about his line of work: “You need to get celebrities involved.”
The Hollywood Reporter - EditFest LA →
Also during the day, a panel examined what moderator Norman Hollyn (The Cotton Club) calls the "lean forward moment." Hollyn — who is head of the editing track at USC's School of Cinematic Arts — defined this as the moment in a film that causes you to lean forward because it's crucial to the plot. He illustrated this by asking each editor on the panel to select a "lean forward" clip from a movie that they did not edit.
That included clips from Aliens and JFK, but it was Conan's head editor, Rob Ashe Jr., who got the biggest reaction from the audience when he announced that he had selected the "Married Life" clip from Pixar's Up — the emotional montage that shows the joy and heartbreak of a married couple.
By the end of the clip, the reaction was exactly what the audience had anticipated. The lights came up and sniffling and sobbing were heard, with editors wiping their eyes across the room.
Ash recalled how he tried to fight tears when he first saw Up in a theater. "I felt betrayed! I thought, 'You're a cartoon!' " he said. "By the end [of the 'Married Life' sequence] — and I'm not a big crier — I was holding my wife's hand and shaking. That part in the doctor's office, I remember leaning forward."
"It was the answer to my question as to how they were going to make me care about an old man who doesn't like people. Imagine taking that scene out of the movie. Then he's just a cranky old man," he said. "I couldn't think of a more lean forward moment of anything else I had seen."
ABC7 - 2 young sisters, each born with rare disorder, share special bond →
Being parents of a child with special needs opens up a whole new world you wouldn't even know exists until you become one. It's an inspiring world, but it can also be very challenging. One Santa Clarita couple accepted this challenge and then some.
All signs were pointing to a healthy baby girl for Rob and Angie Ashe. Doctors didn't see the clues in the ultrasound.
"We did not find out until she was born. It was a surprise in the OR," said Angie. "And it was a blessing actually that we didn't know ahead of time because there's nothing you can do."
Their daughter, Elliot, was diagnosed with a severe form of arthrogryposis, a rare condition that affects about one in 10,000 babies. These children have stiff joints and abnormally developed muscles. The cause is unknown.
Post Perspective - Meet the Artist →
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR COMPANY?
We are a rag tag group of varmints who come together Monday through Thursday to make a hour of late night television for enjoyable consumption by the general public. That show being Conan O’Brien’s Conan on TBS.WHAT’S YOUR JOB TITLE?
Editor/Opening Titles Designer for Conan. I also do the opening titles for Deon Cole’s Black Box on TBS.WHAT DOES THAT ENTAIL?
I along with lead editor Dan Dome and editor Dave Grecu edit pre-taped segments, remotes and mock commercials for that day’s show. After the taping, we edit down segments and bring the show to time. I also render the opening titles of the show every day and do a redesign if we take the show on the road.
Fonts in Use →
Gotham was used for the popular “I’m With Coco” posters created by Mike Mitchell during Conan O’Brien’s 2010 Tonight Show conflict. The typeface was eventually adopted for TBS’s Conan logo and other logos designed by Rob Ashe Jr.
Post Magazine - New Year's Resolutions →
What about Rob Ashe, one of the editors for Conan? Well, he would like to “only create and delete four Tumblr accounts; lose 30 pounds; only buy one suite during the yearly Red Giant Software sale; lose 30 more pounds; continue to do DDPYOGA to get back to my previously girly figure; learn more about what the Red Giant Trapcode Suite can do; lose 27.5 final pounds; get more haircuts; only create and delete two Instagram accounts; resist the urge to shave because if I do my wife will proceed to divorce me; get Red Giant to pay me to fawn over them; realize I’m lucky and only deserve what I put in.”