Just a frivolous one. Did your DC look the way you'd imagined?

[LadyThompson]

I just need a bit of JOLLY chat at the moment. Fed up thinking about heavy things! So - were you right in imagining how your DC looked? I've got fair hair and blue eyes, and DP has got dark hair and blue eyes. I'm expecting my DD to be dark though there is no logical reason to this. Three of her grandparents have/had blue eyes and one has hazelly brown, so I'm thinking blue eyes for her are a given...

[LadyThompson]

God, was it THAT boring and self-indulgent?

[halogen]

I've only got one child, and I was and still am freaked out by her blue eyes! I have brown eyes and so do both my parents and I always just assumed I'd have a brown-eyed child. I am aware this makes me sound a bit barmy. I would quite like a brown-eyed one next time.

[Fennel]

DP and I have brown hair and brown eyes and 2 of our 3 dc have blue eyes and blonde hair, the blue eyes were a surprise really. dd1 in particular looks nothing like either of us.

[Mamazon]

DS is the spit of his dad and DD is the double of me.

not sure how i imagined they would look to be honest. Im just glad they dont look anything like ex MIL.

[MamaG]

I have blonde hair and blue eyes
DH has brown hair and brown eyes

DD looks a lot like DH but is now starting to look more like me, but has brown hair and brown eyes

DS looks like a blonde, blue eyed, small version of DH

Odd.

I imagined DD to be blonde and blue eyed and DS to be brown haired and brown eyed!

Am expected DS2 and i think he'll be dark like DD for some reason - can't wait to find out

[PinkChick]

i have darker skin and mad curly naturally curly hair..dd came out with poker straight hair, ranging from blond/giner/brown! and real english rose pale skin..she now has very long straight light brown hair and doesnt look ONE BIT like me!..she looks EVERYTHING like dp and more like dp's sister than me!..used to upset me actually as my features are so strong but they wern't passed down so to speak??

[DungunGirl]

hi ladies

interesting thread. I have always been fascinated by genetics.
It was going to be a total lottery with my DS when he was born what we would get as myself and my DH are so racially mixed ourselves!

I am half English (white) and half chinese, and my DH is a mix of Malay,Indian and Javanese.

Dh is dark skinned, black hair, very dark brown eyes and I am fair with dark brown hair and greeny brown eyes.

Well our DS is fair but tans instantly! Has beautiful almond shaped eyes ( thanks to the chinese gene! ) , dark brown hair and rich mahogany brown eyes.

I am now pregnant with no.2, so it will be even more interesting as they could be totally different again!

The little i do know about genetics is that Brown eyes tend to be nominant over lighter coloured eyes, BUT that is assuming the one parent ONLY has the brown eye gene, and there is no history anywhere in the family of coloured eyes. THrow back genes from several generations back can re-appear when teamed with the same genes from the other parent.

So, I tend to think with purely white english couples, you could get anything! As you both will have in your genetic make up different coloured eyes and the range of hair colours you get in the UK. It just depends which genes meet up and which are more dominant!

Fascinating stuff! I love it!

[LadyThompson]

Thanks ladies, I thought I was talking into the ether for a while there! So basically, no one really got the colouring they were expecting! It's just a fascinating lottery, and I can't wait. Dungungirl, your family sounds wonderfully exotic! I want to know what your next DC is going to look like as well. I went to Brazil a couple of years ago and one of the amazing things was the range in colouring in people (I'd never really considered it before I went): white people, black people, South American-y Latino types, and everything inbetween and every combo. It was fab, and the other thing is, no one makes an issue of it or even seems to think about it, as everyone's just Brazilian and that's that.

[angel1976]

Before DS was born, I could NOT imagine much as I try. But now he is here, he is everything I imagine and more! Is that terribly indulgent??? My DH is blue-eyed, dark blonde (British white) and I am Chinese in ethnicity so no surprise that DS turned out brown eyes. He was born with black hair but he has lightened up a lot - now his hair is sort of light brown with blondish bit around the forehead. What has turned out to be a surprise is how 'white' he is! I think he looks Chinese mostly but his white skin is a dead giveaway to DH's contribution! ;) He also has the most beautiful eyelashes and that's DH's as well.

[FAQ]

I had a dream while pg with DS1 of him (didn't know I was having a DS) lying in between ex-h and I in our bed (we'd bought a cot - that's where babies sleep......) and in the dream he grew into the spitting image of (now) ex-h - just lighter skin (what with me being white and ex being black).

He was born, and ended up co-sleeping with us - and yes he does look remarkably like ex-h......DS2 and 3 are just clones

[Mikafan]

I have 3 children (2 boys, 1 girl) and none of them look a jot like me. I always wanted a dark brown haired, brown eyed girl (like me) and she's the image of her dad (poor cow)

[PortAndLemon]

DS looks quite like me (although I think more like my grandfather) but his colouring is from DH's side of the family -- superficially (brown hair, brown eyes) like DH but actually more like DH's sister in terms of skintone, etc. (he looks great in colours that would make DH or me look like death warmed over).

DD I expected to look very like DS did. And she does, in terms of her features, but has my colouring (blue eyes, blondish hair (although I expect that will darken over the next couple of years), very fair skin). I'm not sure why that surprised me so much.

(LadyThompson -- if you and your DH both have blue eyes your child will definitely have blue eyes (barring some genetic weirdness)).

[FruitynNutty]

I have very dark brown mad wavy hair, blue eyes, and pale freckly skin.

DS came out bald! (I was expecting a thick mane of dark hair) He is now almost white blond and has the most delicious sunkissed skin, never burns and hs one or two tiny moles. So he's completely taken after DP. I'm hoping this next one will look like me Although I wouldn't wish pale, freckly skin on anyone so I'm hoping he/he will have DP's olivey skin

[Botbot]

DP is ginger (or was before the greying/baldness set in...)

I love ginger hair, and (despite all the rude anti-ginger comments I got while pregnant) was really hoping DD would be ginger too, though tried not to set my heart on it because there's no ginger on my side of the family at all.

And she is! She has beautiful light ginger hair and blue eyes.

Bad thing: she has inherited DP's annoying chin, which has a crease in which he cultivates blackheads.

(hello dungungirl )

[CatIsSleepy]

i actually had no expectations at all about what dd would look like-I mean I just couldn't imagine it
and she actually doesn't actually look very strongly like either dh or I except for having dh's colouring pretty much (quite pleased she has dh's blue eyes rather than my sludge green)

am pg now and am similarly unable to picture what the new one will be like

perhaps I'm just very unimaginative

[CatIsSleepy]

actually I was very surprised when dd came out with a head gull of dark hair-was expecting fair (OK so I did have some expectations!)
but it only lasted a few weeks before it was replaced by blonde fuzz anyway
blonde is all growing out now and she's sort of mousy fair

[CatIsSleepy]

head gull? that would have been a surprise...

head full

[ceebee74]

Ooh this is interesting.

When I was pg with DS (and this is going to sound so trivial) I was paranoid he was going to be an ugly baby as neither me or DH are particularly attractive (not that that would have mattered at all but I blame pg hormones).

But somehow, DS has got the best of us both and is so cute (I know I am biased but he really is ) and I have no idea how that happened!

The other strange thing is that both me and DH are very dark haired with dark brown eyes - DS has got our dark brown eyes but has very blonde hair which gets commented on a lot by other people ('milkman' comments anyone??) But it is a lovely combination and I really do hope he stays blonde tbh.

Second baby on the way now and have learnt not to expect anything!!

[MeAndMyMonkey]

Both my partner and I have dark brown hair and eyes - mine a bit darker, and my skin slightly more olive-y. Was completely shocked that DD turned out to be bright blue-eyed with kind of darkish blonde, fine straight hair, quite pale skin at first but has taken on a slightly more honey-ish hue now.
After the initial surprise I absolutely love her colouring, am almost jealous as it is complete opposite of mine...
I did spend about a day trying to remember that bit in 'Lace' where they finally work out who the father is because of the eye colour... I think it was 2 blue-eyed parents couldn't produce a blue-eyed child, rather than vice versa. I was on the verge of dna-testing myself!
Hopeless that my only grasp of genetics is from 'Lace', I know .

[MeAndMyMonkey]

I mean brown-eyed child, of course

[LadyThompson]

Is that true, PortandLemon? DP's are more of a green than a blue but mine are very blue. My Mum has got hazelly brown eyes and Dad's got blue, but me and my sis both ended up with blue!

[princessx2]

My daughter looks nothing like I expected her to. Me and DH have dark brown hair and DH had chocolate brown eyes and I have brown/hazel eyes. When DD was born, she had jet black hair and dark eyes. Over time, her eyes were brown and then her hair has developed into a red/auburn colour and everybody comments on the combination of her hair/eye colour. She is the image of her daddy.

I'm 38 weeks with another dd and can't wait to see what she looks like. My hope with number 2 dd, is that I get a look in!!

[DungunGirl]

Hello Botbot

[PortAndLemon]

LadyThompson -- to over-simplify, you inherit one gene for eye colour from each parent and brown is dominant over green which is dominant over blue.

So if (as with your parents) mother has a blue gene and a brown gene she will have brown eyes but can pass on either the blue or the brown gene. If father has blue eyes he must have two blue genes (as if he had any green or brown he'd have green or brown eyes). Therefore their children could have either brown eyes (inherit brown gene from mother, blue gene from father) or blue eyes (inherit blue gene from mother, blue gene from father).

If both parents have truly blue eyes, then they must have only blue genes -- if they had anything green or brown then they'd have green or brown eyes. So they can only have children with blue eyes because they can't pass on anything other than blue eye genes to their children.

Now, it's actually more complicated than that, because there are actually multiple sets of genes involved and they interact (which is why eyes aren't just "blue", "green" or "brown" but all the different and interesting shades and hazels and sludgy colours that they are). But in broad terms it holds -- two blue-eyed parents can only, in the normal run of things, have a blue-eyed child.

If your DH has greenish eyes, rather than actual blue then your DC could have blue or green, or some kind of greenish-blue (because of the "more complicated than that" stuff) but not brown.

[JamesAndTheGiantBanana]

I have straight mousey hair, blue eyes, round petite features, dimple, small nose.

Dp has very big curly brown hair, blue eyes, long nose, masculine looking.

I imagined ds would be the very image of his dad, strong nose, curly hair, etc - I somehow imagined he'd look a bit like a mini Beethoven!

Ds has straight ginger hair, eyes the exact same blue as dp but my shape, my cheek dimple, my nose, my smile, he looks a LOT like me when I was little, but with exactly his dads shaped largish ears and big meaty well formed hands.

I just love how they get a little bit of you, a little bit of him, it's so fascinating!