Birth

Our daughter's birth seemed perfectly normal. At least right up until the time the delivery doctor informed us that she was missing fingers on her right hand. After the shock wore off, the frustration set in. Later, as we learned more about the experiences of others, we understood that it's typically about 50/50 whether the condition is caught by the ultrasound prior to birth. At the time however, it seemed impossible that this is something that shouldn't have been caught at the 20-week ultrasound.

The next day we had our first discussion with our pediatrician. It was immediately obvious that he hadn't seen anything like this before. It turns out that congential hand differences occur between 1 out of every 50,000 to 70,000 births. To benchmark that ratio note that 1 out of every 28 children are born with at least some kind of birth defect.