Liz's Entrance to the world

Since Liz has achondroplasia, one of the first questions I'm asked is whether we knew about this before her birth. Even though in many cases people do know beforehand, we didn't.

We had ultrasounds, but the most recent was at about 24 weeks, and there was no reason to have later ultrasounds. If there had been an ultrasound at 30 weeks or later, there would have been indication of the achondroplasia. It would have shown shorter leg growth and a slightly larger head.

Because we were unaware of her condition, we proceeded as if there were no health conditions involved.

Her birth was an emergency C-Section after her heart-rate bottomed out, and mine wasn't doing so hot either. She was rushed to the NICU and luckily was only there for 5 days.

In our case, it was clear that many of the medical staff had never treated a baby with achondroplasia. Yet, they were able to detect the possibility of achondroplasia just two days after her birth.

One nurse also told us that she'd never seen "anything like this" in her 16 years as a nurse. She was also the same person who used words to describe Liz that I would never say about my worst enemy.

Unfortunately, that gave us an early indicator that there are still so many people in our society who are not sensitive to people with differences.

Surprisingly since then, I've found that a lot of people are simply curious about Liz's condition, and generally handle the situation all right, once we explain it.

Once we arrived home from the hospital, I armed myself with as much information as I could about achondroplasia.

It became clear to us from that Liz is a very determined (stubborn) person She hit all of her milestones in stride, even though we were expecting significant delays. She continues to stun us daily.

Now, at age three, I love hearing her conversations. Her sentences amaze me. The other day, she told me, "I have lots of energy and we eat healthy foods to get energy."

She's a little chatterbox. I'll post some of our conversations too.