Recessive

I am a left-handed, blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned person. I've often been heard describing myself as a walking recessive gene.

When we got Olivia's diagnosis, I knew that Tom and I needed to be tested to see if either of us had passed the deletion on to her.

Tom wasn't quite so keen on giving a vial of blood just so we could know.

I pulled the older kids card, reminding him that we got REALLY lucky with Olivia and if either of us was a carrier, any one (or more) of our older kids could be one too.

He bought it and got tested.

We ended up on the majority side of the percentages. Olivia's deletion was a random fluke. Just something that happened.

I didn't want to know so that we could place 'blame.' There is no such thing as blame in a situation like this.

But I also knew that the older kids deserved to know if there was a chance they could pass this on to future generations.

Growing up, I liked looking like my dad's sister. I loved having that genetic connection.

I always kind of wanted to have kids that looked like. I know that's SO egotistical but there it is.

When Alyssa was born, my mom, who was in the delivery room, said, "She looks just like her daddy."

And she did. She does. And I love that. I love looking at my daughter and seeing so much of my husband.

It suddenly doesn't matter if she has any of my recessive traits. She is perfection, just the way she is.

They both are.

Would I fix Olivia's chromosomal deletion if I could? Yes. Even though I think she's perfect just the way she is right this second I would take away her struggles, her pain. I would do what any parent would do if they could, I would make my child's life easier.

But since I can't splice DNA back into my child's cells, I tell her every single day how proud I am of her, how amazing she is, how perfect she is just the way she is.

She and her sister are the perfect melding of me, their recessive gene-carrying mother and their daddy, a green-eyed, brown-haired guy who tans really, really easily but who managed to conceive two blond, blue-eyed daughters who also tan WAY more easily then their mom.

Yep, the perfect combination of the two of us.

Who could ask for more?