For a baby like Alexander K, born in Siberia, Russia, to a single mom, life was always going to be a struggle. This young boy was born without eyeballs due to an incredibly rare genetic condition called SOX2 anophthalmia, so rare that he shares it with just two other children in the world. It is thought to affect 1 in every 250,000 pregnancies.
When his mother, unidentified by local media, learned in her third trimester about his condition, she decided to give him for adoption, as she felt she couldn’t care for a blind child. Born in the city of Tomsk in Western Siberia in April 2019, Sasha was taken to the orphanage.
