Wednesday, January 7, 2009

one twin has heterochromia

Over the Christmas holiday while at the in-laws', Daddy noticed that Thing 2 also has heterochromia (right eye). It doesn't cover as much of her eye as Curious George's though. Of course we had to check Thing 1 to see if she has it, being identical and all. But Thing 2's eyes are evenly colored. We then looked at all the photos from when they were born. I found discoloration on Thing 2's eye as early as 4 months old. Daddy and I then became obsessed by the topic and searched the internet. Having 2 out of 3 kids with sectoral heterochromia clearly suggests a genetic component. Why Thing 1 doesn't have it isn't really a mystery anymore since there are a lot of genetic studies saying identical twins don't exactly have the same genes. The zygosity DNA testing we had done when they were infants said the girls are identical twins, but of course there are factors that affect gene expression.

Anyway, I told Daddy that it is highly unlikely the heterochromia came from my side of the family. Being Filipino, the variation in eye color in my family only goes from minute differences of brown. We found a picture on the internet of someone with central heterochromia and to me it looked exactly like Daddy's eyes (his eyes are hazel). So I suggested I take a picture of them. Then while we were all curious, I took pictures of Nana and Papaw's eyes (they both have hazel eyes). It seems their hazel eyes may very well be central heterochromia (they are yellowish in the center).

Thing 2's right eye. The discoloration is at 9 o'clock and it's small. We've missed it this long since it just looks like glare on pictures. The discoloration looks greenish, but Daddy says it's a lighter shade of brown.

While on the topic, here is Daddy's right eye. It is hazel with a yellowish/goldish ring in the center.

And for those who are curious as to what possible eye color offspring results when a dark brown-eyed asian gal gets it on with a hazel-eyed caucasian man, here is my eye.

Our little man's heterochromia is here. Thing 1's eyes is exactly the same color as Thing 2's (without the discoloration).

1 comment:

  1. i started researching this since my son has blue spots on one brown eye. seeing that your child has ur exact color eye with a spot matching ur husbands eye makes sense. our son has my color eyes with two spots of his dads color on one.

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