In Support of Short Stature : Dwarfism: O.C. model Tina Schafnitz, whose son was born with achondroplasia, is using her wealth and connections on behalf of little people.

Tina and Matthew Schafnitz had tried for two years to conceive a child. They had all but given up on the doctors and the fertility drugs.

So when Tina found out she was pregnant, she kept it secret for two weeks until Matthew’s birthday, when she hired a couple of violin players and broke the news at a special dinner.

“We were lifted so high with the pregnancy,” she recalls. “We were walking on air. We were on our way to a wonderful place called parenthood.”

Eight months into the pregnancy, Tina went in for an ultrasound at her own request to see what the baby looked like. Doctors saw limbs that were much too small for the torso and eventually diagnosed achondroplasia, a type of dwarfism. In addition to small stature, they were concerned that the child could suffer life-threatening complications.

A doctor advised the Schafnitzes they had three options: They could go through with the birth and then either keep the baby or give him up for adoption, or they could terminate the pregnancy.

“They told me this community might not be ready to accept him,” Tina says. “I said, ‘He’s our son. He has a name.’ He was wanted and he was loved.”

Her last month of pregnancy was spent in anxious waiting. Doctors weren’t sure if the child would live or die at birth. But 18 months ago Monday, Alexander was born a healthy baby.

“The birth was a wonderful, joyous occasion,” she says.

Since then, the Schafnitzes of Newport Beach have found themselves playing a leading role on behalf of people of short stature. And they are in a position to make a difference.

Tina, a model, and Matthew, a partner in an insurance brokerage firm, are active philanthropists--supporting several charities and attending elegant galas for a wide range of causes. Tina, 31, with her custom gowns and crown of golden hair, is an attention-getter at these affairs.

“I had a fairy-tale life,” she says, and then immediately corrects herself: “It is a fairy tale.”

Today, Tina is using all of her assets--her wealth, her connections and her personality--to make the world an easier place for her child and others like him. She’s on her way to becoming one of the little people’s strongest supporters.

Instead of hiding away with Alexander, she began telling some of her influential friends about her son and about dwarfism to drum up support for the Irvine-based Short Stature Foundation. For Alexander’s first birthday party, she asked that instead of gifts, cash donations be made to the foundation.

And last weekend, Tina assembled committee members at Prego Ristorante in Irvine to plan a benefit for the foundation. Members and guests included Gaye and Art Birtcher, Patty and Jim Edwards and Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan.

In part because of the Schafnitzes’ influence, Prego General Manager Franco Vessia named the foundation the beneficiary for the restaurant’s annual Italian Harvest Feast on Nov. 3. Each year, Prego chooses one charity to reap the profits from its annual Festa della Vendemmia.

For the Short Stature Foundation, which has generally sought assistance in a more low-key manner, the event is the biggest of its history.

Says Richard Crandall, the foundation’s executive director: “We’ve never had an event with written invitations.”

The money raised will be used to fund the foundation’s hot line (1-800-24DWARF)--the same number Tina called in desperation for information after Alexander’s birth. The hot line tells parents how to find clothes and shoes for their children, and doctors who specialize in dwarfism.

“Can you imagine how a mother might feel who has no idea what to do, nowhere to go?” Crandall says.

Tina can. When she and her husband went to the library to find books on dwarfism, the librarian handed them books about “tree houses and elves.”

“The day Alexander was born, I looked at him and I wondered if he would ever have friends, if he’d ever have a date, if he’d ever get married. Where most other mothers are worrying about what kind of formula to use or what kind of car seat to buy, I’m worrying about his future. I want him to have the best of life, like I did and like his daddy did.”

She is quickly discovering what it’s like to be the parent of a dwarf.

It means not being able to buy many of baby clothes she sees in the stores because Alexander’s proportions are so different from other children’s.

“I get tears in my eyes because I see things I’d like to buy him but I know they’ll never fit. I have to go for what’s comfortable, while most parents just buy what’s cute.”

It means going to the grocery store and having strangers comment on her son’s small size. When she explains Alexander’s a dwarf, they size up her 5-foot-11 frame and assume she’s joking. Some even ask her, “Are you sure?”--as if, says Tina, “I just diagnosed it myself over a cup of coffee that morning.”

“Every day I’m reminded that I have a different child. People stare, and they don’t realize they’re doing it,” she says.

Often she must smile and explain to curious children why her son’s head is so big, and why his limbs are so small.

Doctors have told her that when her son is fully grown, he’ll stand only 4-foot-6 to 4-foot-8.

“I’ve been stared at because I’m tall and blond,” she says. “I’m having to teach my son he’ll be stared at, too.”

She worries what will happen to Alexander when she’s not around to protect him.

“School will be a whole new experience for us. I worry that he’ll be discriminated against. I hope people will love him for who he is inside and maybe look beyond his physical disability.”

Dwarfism is caused by a random gene mutation. Two average-sized people can give birth to a dwarf even if there are no instances of dwarfism in either of the parents’ family histories. In fact, 90% of dwarfs’ parents are of average stature.

Parents usually have no idea the child will be a dwarf until after birth--Tina’s diagnosis during pregnancy is extremely rare.

“My first reaction was they’d made a mistake,” Tina recalls. “I thought dwarfism had something to do with my height.”

Parents and their dwarf children are often in for a lifetime of discrimination and suffering. Although dwarfism isn’t considered a disability, little people usually have medical problems. Foundation director Crandall, himself a dwarf, has trouble with his digestive and respiratory systems.

Unlike the Schafnitzes, many parents hide their children from the public eye to protect them from taunts.

“There’s not a day when I haven’t been laughed at or jeered at when I walked down the street,” Crandall told the crowd at Prego.

Some never overcome the pain of being social outcasts. Crandall’s daughter was born a dwarf and committed suicide at age 17.

Crandall reacted to his daughter’s death by starting the foundation in 1984 to help other dwarfs and their families. Due to lack of funds, though, the foundation recently had to discontinue its national quarterly newsletter.

Crandall hopes that with the Schafnitzes’ help, the foundation will become stronger.

“We’re not seen in public that frequently, so it’s kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ We’re just not that visible,” he says. “This is broadening the awareness of the community for people of short stature.”

For her part, Tina hopes the growing awareness will ease her son’s passage into adulthood. The day before he starts school, she wants to visit his class and explain his condition so the children will know why he’s so small. Maybe then they won’t ask him so many questions. She dreads the questions Alexander will ask someday.

“I know one day he’s going to come home and he’s going to ask, ‘Why? Why me, Mom?’ I think he’s going to be the one to teach me the answer to that. I know he’s going to have a great heart, and I know I’m going to tell him, ‘Because you’re going to do great things, Alexander.’ ”

Contributions can be made to the Short Stature Foundation, 17200 Jamboree Road, Suite J, Irvine, 92714.