We won the lottery!

What an exciting, long, tiring, informative day it has been!

Evan had his first of many (yearly) visits to the Skeletal Dysplasia Clinic at Children's Hospital. Overall consensus is that Evan is the easiest patient. Ever. And what a charmer! He had all of the doctors wrapped around his little fingers. He was weighed and measured, poked and prodded, all with the hugest grin on his face. Kind of like this one...Most everything looked really good. He is in the 5th percentile of average height/weight children and his proportions are not that far behind (right now). This will all change, of course, but so far so good. He needs to have an x-ray of his pelvis because of limited motion, but any problems in that area will most likely develop as he gets older, so not much of a concern right now.
We learned today that this condition is actually more rare then we thought. And we feel, as Rob stated today, that it's like we won the lottery! What a blessing Evan has been to us. And we look forward to raising him, with all of the challenges and joys.

The highlight of today, though, was not meeting all of the awesome doctors, but it was meeting a twelve year old boy named Zack. Zack and Evan are two of very few cases of Hypochondroplasia that this hospital sees (they may be the only two). And it happened that he was, also, at the clinic today and the staff arranged for us to meet with him and his father. I'll be honest, when I met first met Zack, my heart sank. It was my first real life visual of what is to come, and Zach was short. Reality check. I don't know what I was expecting.
We were able to meet with Zach and his father, Richard, and just talk about concerns, what the future holds, school issues, how to approach curious people, sports, friends, LPA, Little People Big World, huge heads...I felt like I could stay there forever talking with them, picking at their brains. But the most interesting thing, was the immediate connection between Evan and Zach. Evan, seriously, ran right up to him and gave him a hug. And cheesy as this sounds, it was almost like they already knew each other.

Zach has that same "happy" demeanor that Evan has. Richard said he thinks when their gene was mutated they were given a "happy gene" in its place. He has met a few others with Hypo and they all carry that same exuberance. Even when Evan is sad, he lights up. He's contagious.

Seeing what the future has to hold has made me even more in love with my goofy Evan! Can that be possible?!?

I'm looking forward to it!