What happens when the tiny baby you were expecting turns out to be the size of a three-month-old? A lot of jokes, for starters. Before my son was born, people were already making jokes. I’m 177cm (5’10” in the old-school measurements) and my husband is 6’4”. We both have curly-ish hair and smallish frames. Other than that, we look nothing alike (I promise!) but our friends used to joke that one thing they knew for sure is that we would have tall, skinny, curly-haired babies. I would have been shocked to have a small or even average-sized baby. But still, I wasn’t prepared for the enormity (literally!) of what I got. Which was nearly 5kg of newborn goodness. Yes, you read that right.
I know he’s not going to make the Guinness Book of World Records, and yes, it’s quite possible that you know or have heard of some one who had a baby that big, or even bigger. But do you know what? I was never keen on entering into that particular competition. And whichever way you look at it, a 4.85kg baby is BIG. Don’t tell me your eyes are not watering right now. Did I mention that my frame is quite small? I’m tall, but there’s not that much room in the old inn. Despite people reassuring me (after the fact), that it’s probably ok because I’m so tall, I’m here to tell you that the length of your legs doesn’t really help you out when you have a massive baby on board and not much space between your ribcage and your pelvis. The breathing thing can get a bit difficult.
Now that my children are older people tend to ask me less about their birth weight but there was a time when it seemed like the go-to conversation-starter among parents of babies under 2.
He was HOW big?
The first question people always ask after hearing that my son weighed 10 pounds 11 at birth, is “was it a natural birth?” followed by the slight wince that they try to hide when I say yes. And, he was my first baby, so nothing down there was ‘prepared’ or ‘pre-stretched’ if you get my gist. But also, I had nothing to compare it to, so for me, it was normal. The next thing they say is usually one of two responses: either it’s an anecdote about some one they know who also had a baby of similar size or bigger, (“did you hear about that 7kg Chinese baby?”), or it’s commiserations/sympathy/awe.
"Not long to go now…"
When I was first pregnant I thought how cute it would be to have a little bump to show off. During those first few months I couldn’t wait to get into my maternity gear, and was relieved at no longer having to worry about whether my stomach was sticking out. By the time I was around 15 weeks pregnant, I had that “glow” and a neat little basketball where my belly used to be. The problem was, the basketball soon went rogue. At around 28 weeks, strangers started looking at me sympathetically and making comments like, “It must be any day now!” Um, no. Twelve more weeks to go.
By the time I was closer to term, my stomach was enormous and the jokes were really flowing thick and fast. Some harmless, some nasty. The number of people who questioned whether I was having twins astounded me. When I assured them that no, it was definitely only one, many of them pressed on, “Are you sure?” Um, yes, I’m pretty sure modern sonography has developed to the point where if I was carrying an extra passenger, I would know. One woman took the trouble to shout at me across three aisles in the supermarket checkout, “Wow! You must be having triplets! You’re HUGE!”
"Oh my goodness, that's hilarious (or not)"
A male colleague took every opportunity to comment on my girth. I am not sure how he came to the conclusion that mocking a pregnant woman was somehow acceptable. He’d say “You look like you’re having a baby elephant, not a human being!” and chortle. And this charmer from another male colleague: “You look like you need a wheelchair! That baby’s going to fall out onto the floor at any minute!” I told them both where to go but couldn’t hold back my tears in the relative privacy of the ladies’ toilets. I wanted to throttle them for their insensitivity.
At one point I did ask my obstetrician whether he thought my baby would be extremely large. He replied, “no, not really, some women just carry babies all out in front. And you’re tall.” Again with the tall. He told me not to worry, it would be just as big as it needed to be, and better to have a big healthy baby than a small struggling one. I tried to take that on board. After all, he was right. What was so bad about a big baby? There was no shame in it, it was a good thing. Then why did people keep treating me like a freak?
Once I was getting into a taxi and the cab driver asked whether I wanted to go straight to the hospital, and to add insult to injury, asked “How does your husband let you out of the house like that?”
The stats
So it’s fair to say that given what I’d been through during my pregnancy, I was well prepared for my baby to be big. Like, around 10 pounds. But even I got a shock when the final stats came in. Head circumference: 39cm (average baby head circumference: 34-35cm). Length: 59 cm (average baby length: 50cm). Weight: 4.85kg (average baby weight: 3.2kg).
The nurses commented immediately that I could put a backpack on him and send him off to school (which, I could see was maybe a little bit funny). Admittedly the triple zero clothes only lasted a couple of weeks, and he was a ravenous feeder from day one (“he’ll be chewing steak soon!” was another jibe) but to me he was just my lovely precious baby.
After a while I learned to deflect the comments and let them wash over me. Aside from the nasty treatment I had experienced at work, most people sincerely didn’t mean any harm and were just expressing their surprise at seeing a newborn this size. I even found it funny when, the day we arrived home from hospital, my mum pointed out that the boxes of newborn nappies I had purchased would have to be returned to the supermarket, as “they look like a g-string on him.”
Now I wear my baby’s size as a badge of honour - the two of us were like a living urban myth for a while. Once while I was in a baby change room at the shops and got chatting to another mum, the subject of our babies’ sizes came up and she said she had heard about me in hospital, as she had given birth there several days later. My son and I were the talk of the ward.
Having been born off the size charts, my son has continued along the same trajectory and is now, in kindergarten, the same height as most of the Year 2 kids. He’s used to it, I’m used to it, and we take all comments in our stride. It’s his genetic destiny to be tall. He’s happy and healthy, and I think he’s “off the charts” in more ways than one. And yes, he has curly hair too!
This article was written for Birth by Sarah Liebetrau
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Monday, May 21, 2012