Fair warning: This story is filled with pictures of an absolutely adorable baby and big sister, so consider this our "awwww" warning notice!
When Taylor Dunnavant found out that she and her fiancé, Chris, were expecting their second baby, they didn't realize that this was just the first of many surprises that baby Noralynn would bring them and their 5-year-old daughter, Brooklynn. After a pregnancy that was completely opposite of her first — she was in pain, losing weight, and convinced she was having a boy — this mom from Missouri went into labor two weeks early. And when she was finally born, this newborn with albinism left everyone but her big sister with countless questions.
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As Dunnavant was giving birth, she wondered what color hair her newborn would have: red like hers or brown like Chris'.
As she pushed, a nurse told Dunnavant that her baby had a head full of hair, but this didn't come as a surprise, because her firstborn was born with thick brown hair. The nurse, however, left out one detail: Baby Nora's hair was completely white.
When the mom first saw her newborn, she was admittedly shocked.
After that final push, Dunnavant's doctor held up Nora so her parents could see their newborn for the first time.
"When he set her down, all I could do was yell, 'Oh!'" she tells CafeMom. "Our baby had hair alright — a head full of hair, white as snow. I looked at Chris and all I could say to him was, 'She has white hair.'"
As the nurses took Nora to clean her up, Dunnavant tried to process what her baby's hair color could mean.
"That's when all the thoughts started swarming in. 'How did she get white hair? What caused white hair? Is our baby albino? How could she be albino? Is she okay?' I kept shaking," she says. "The nurse told me [the shaking] was probably just from labor, but I think it was my nerves because I was terrified of what could come from this."
One of her biggest fears was how the baby's big sister, Brooklynn, would react to Nora's 'different' appearance.
As nurses were buzzing with questions about where her white hair came from and popping into Dunnavant's room just to sneak a peek, the new mom only cared about what one person would think.
"I was dreading having to explain to our 5-year-old, Brooklynn, why her sister was different," she says. "I didn't want Brooklynn to think we didn't love her. It wasn't so much directed towards Noralynn's albinism, but more just I didn't want Brooklynn to dislike her baby sister."
But all Brooklynn saw was a princess: Her sister looked like Elsa from 'Frozen.'
Dunnavant quickly realized that her worries over how Brooklynn would see her sister were for nothing. Brooklynn was blown away by her sister's beauty.
"I didn't have to tell her [a] thing … She told me that her sister was a snow fairy. And then informed me that she was related to Elsa," she tells us. "I should have known that children see no differences."
Brooklynn's sheer love and enthusiasm for Nora put everything into perspective.
"As soon as she told me she looked like Elsa, I couldn't help but laugh," the mom says. "It was the most comical, yet heartwarming response. And I hoped the world would be just as accepting as my 5-year-old was."
After seeing a specialist, Nora was officially diagnosed with albinism.
According to the Mayo Clinic, albinism refers to a group of inherited disorders that limit production of the pigment responsible for hair, skin, and eye color. In addition to sensitivity to the sun, it's also common for those with albinism to have vision problems.
It's estimated that one in every 20,000 people is born with albinism worldwide, and the National Institutes of Health lists it as a rare disease, meaning it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the United States.
"With neither of us having any family members that we know of that have albinism, we were completely confused," she says. "The genetic counselor explained to us that albinism is a recessive gene, meaning that both mother and father have to possess the gene in order for baby to receive it. The other option is that baby mutated the gene all on her own."
'Her eyes will remain silver with glares of red,' Dunnavant says.
"With Nora specifically, it is unlikely that she will ever have any other hair color other than white," she says. "It is possible she may gain some pigment, but unlikely. The same with her eyes. She will most likely need some type of corrective lenses, like glasses.
"We will forever have to lather her up in the highest SPF of sunscreen that we can find. There is a chance that she could have trouble with hearing," she adds.
This was all amazing news to Nora's worried mom because it wasn't anything they couldn't deal with.
"Everything that the specialist mentioned was manageable. This entire time I was horrified over all things that could be managed," she says. "A little weight was lifted off of my shoulders. Her condition no longer was on my mind, knowing that she is healthy, just different."
The mom couldn't help feeling angry, however, at how everyone else was reacting.
Because strangers love babies, Dunnavant says that everywhere they went, people wanted to see Nora. But when they took a peek and noticed her hair, the rude comments would come.
"They would ask Chris and I if she was albino," she says. "People would point and stare. And we even had people yell across the grocery store to 'look at the little albino.' Of course, this upset us. We expected that type of behavior out of children but never from full-grown adults.
"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?"
At first, these strangers made it painful to go out with Nora in public.
The comments quickly got to Dunnavant, and she found it extremely difficult to deal with all the attention her family would get whenever they left home. "We cannot go anywhere without people stopping and asking something in reference to her hair. Or asking to see the color of her eyes," she says.
But that didn't last long, because her family sees the beauty in being different — and that's all that matters.
Now, she doesn't let the questions bother her and just politely responds with, "She has albinism." Dunnavant realizes that most people are just genuinely curious, and she hopes to shine more light on albinism instead of hiding her daughter's condition.
"Before Noralynn, Chris and I had zero knowledge of albinism," 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, and everything's going to be OK.
"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," she adds. "This is definitely going to be a different journey than we had planned for, but it's going to be OK. Having albinism is OK. Being different is OK."
