Punnett squares

One of the awesome things about being a pregnant geneticist is that I’m super excited about pulling out some high school bio skills and calculating a few probabilities on morphological traits the baby might have.  OK, it helps that I went genetics-crazy last fall and got husband and myself genotyped at a million SNPs through 23andme (do it!  It's awesome!!  Only $99!!).  It also makes it more fun that I’m a heterozygote for a lot of things :)

Traits of current interest:

ABO blood type - ok, we’ve established that the baby will be Rh negative.  Here’s the breakdown for ABO:
Husband: AB (actually A101, B101)
Me: AO (A101, O109)
Baby: 50% A (AA or AO), 25% B, 25% AB (my hope: AB, my prediction: A)

Eye color: brown/blue
Husband: bb (blue)
Me: Bb (sort of hazel)
Baby: 50% blue, 50% brown/hazel (my hope: blue, of course!  Husband - and rest of   husband's family - all have fantastic eyes.)
(FYI: 23andme calculates baby’s probability as 40% blue/gray, 32% green/hazel, 29% brown)

Eye color: blue/green (best visible if non-brown, 2 loci, dominance unknown)
Husband: bg/gg
Me: bb/bb
Baby: 50%bb, 50%bg; 100% bg (my prediction: probably blue)

Hair color
Husband: bb (blonde; here’s a pic of him as a kid - adorable, isn’t he!)
Me: Bb! (brown)
Baby: 50% brown, 50% blonde (no preference here!)
(Side note: husband is also a carrier for the red-haired allele and could pass on carrier status, how fun :))

Husband, back in the day, with his straight, blonde hair :)

Hair curl (trichohyalin, a.k.a. total bs)
Husband: cc (homozygous curly, except his hair is stick straight, re: above photo)
Me: sc (heterozygous straight, except my hair is out of control)
Baby: 50% sc, 50% cc (my hope: please, please be straight hair, especially if it's a girl. I don't know how many years of my life I have lost as a slave to the ceramic straightening iron....)
However, as you can see, there is no way that this locus is in control of MY curly hair, so I call bs!  There’s a second gene on 23andme with a mild association, for a wnt signaling protein, but I’m homozygous straight for that one, too.  However, since my dad has stick straight hair as well, I’m going to stick with classical genetics and guess that our odds on this one are still 50-50.

Fingerprints!
Husband: ????  I should ask him.
Me: all loops...B-O-R-I-N-G.
Baby: who knows!  This one has a huge stochastic component based on microenvironments in the uterus.  I’m hoping for at least one whorl :)

Traits for which we already know the outcome:

non-ABO blood type - husband and I are identically homozygous for Diego and both variants of Kell (but untested for Duffy or the others), so the only one of some interest for which we have data is Kidd:
Husband: Jk(a-b+)
Me: Jk(a+b-)
Baby: 100% Jk(a+b+)
(Yes, with all my blood type drama and research, I am *very slightly* worried about an anti-Kidd reaction to the b+.  Such a reaction would be very, very rare, with likely minimal effects if it occurs, but this is still a known incompatibility for baby and me.)

Lactose intolerance: 100% tolerant

Earwax: 100% wet

Bitter taste perception (“super taster”): 100% unable to taste

Warfarin (Coumadin®) sensitivity: 100% increased sensitivity

Isn’t warfarin used as rat poison?  Not sure I - or my husband or my baby - want any, anyway! :)

OK, I edited this after posting to show that my hair really is crazy.  Compare psycho-hair baby below to adorable husband above.  And no, this isn't just a bad haircut.  I really do look like that.

Center, with puppy Calida and older brother.