When her mother gave birth, Brooklynn did not expect to have a little sister with white skin and blond hair in front of her. The reaction of the 5-year-old girl did not fail to soften the entire web.
Even before she gave birth, Taylor Dunnavant knew that her second baby was different from the others. In addition to having experienced a completely chaotic pregnancy, this mother from Missouri gave birth two weeks before the expected delivery date. When her second baby girl, Noralynn, was born, Taylor and her husband were surprised to discover that their baby had ᴀʟʙɪɴɪsᴍ. Aʟʙɪɴɪsᴍ is a relatively rare genetic disease characterized by a partial or total absence of melanin. However, this pigment is naturally produced by the cells of the epidermis and gives color to the hair, skin and eyes. In shock, the parents could not help admiring their offspring for long minutes.
“When she was given to me, all I could say was ‘Oh!’. Our baby had lots of hair but snow white hair,” the mom said. Upon seeing her daughter’s face for the first time , Taylor became concerned because no doctor had yet diagnosed ᴀʟʙɪɴɪsᴍ. “How could she have had white hair? Is our baby albino? How is that possible? Is she okay? I tremble on my hospital bed,” said the young woman. However, they were afraid of the reaction of their 5-year-old daughter, Brooklynn.
If Taylor Dunnavant was worried about the reaction of Brooklynn, she was, on the contrary, very surprised by her daughter! Indeed, the little girl had stars in her eyes and even compared her little sister to a princess. “After discovering her little sister, she turned to me to tell me that she looked like Elsa from Frozen. It was very funny and, at the same time, very moving,” declares the mother. In the photos published on the internet, we can see the 5-year-old girl marveling at Noralynn. Precious moments that Taylor decided to immortalize and which did not fail to soften the Web. According to the mother, Brooklynn is a big sister to the angels!
Taylor has revealed that taking her family out in public is not without its challenges, as other people’s curiosity generally gets the better of them. “They would ask Chris and I if she was ᴀʟʙɪɴᴏ,” she says. “People would point and stare. And we even had people yell across the grocery store to ‘look at the little ᴀʟʙɪɴᴏ.’ Of course, this upset us. We expect that type of behavior out of children but never from full-grown adults.”
The young couple found this sort of attention upsetting. “How do you protect your children from the world being so cruel? How do we as parents make sure that our children do not grow up disliking themselves or things about themselves because they are different?”
“We cannot go anywhere without people stopping and asking something in reference to her hair. Or asking to see the colour of her eyes,” she says.
“Before Nora, Chris and I had zero knowledge of ᴀʟʙɪɴɪsᴍ,” she says. “We’re learning more and more every day.”
“I’m slightly upset with myself because I was so worried about the condition without knowing anything about it. But now I know that everything’s going to be okay. We’ve been given such a special little girl to raise and to grow with. She not only brings joy to everyone that she meets but to anyone who gets to see her unique features in photographs.”
“This is definitely going to be a different journey than we had planned for, but it’s going to be okay. Having ᴀʟʙɪɴɪsᴍ is okay. Being different is okay.”