My 10-pound Blessing

I had a very normal pregnancy, gaining only 15 pounds. My blood pressure was always perfect, no gestational diabetes, not much morning sickness, etc.

I had a very old-fashioned doctor. I only had one ultrasound and that was around 22 weeks. As I closed in on my due date, I was at one of my appointments and the doctor looked at my belly and said, "Do you think you're going to have a big one?" and I said, "I don't know. What do you think?" At that point he said he thought the baby was around 8 pounds. At that point, I still had a few weeks to go. He said not to worry, that he would just rather the baby not get to 10 pounds. At that point I told him my mom had large babies and in fact I was a 10-pound, 6-ounce baby.

The closer I got to my due date, the more I worried about a large baby, but everyone assured me the baby would only be an 8 or 9 pounder.

I was induced three days past my due date on June 22. After a couple hours of hard contractions, the baby's heart rate started to plummet. At this point I didn't have an epidural but had been given Stadol and Phenergan and so I was totally loopy and didn't even know what was happening when the nurses rushed in to prep me for a Cesarean section. My husband says he was worried at that point.

A few minutes passed and I remember getting the spinal. Finally my husband came in. At some point they started the C-section but again, I was in and out and not aware of what was going on. My husband said they were struggling to get his head out, that one doctor was even pressing on my stomach.

They eventually got the vacuum out so they could pull his head through the incision. At this point I must have come to because I heard my doctor say, "Oh boy!" and I said, "It's a boy?" But my husband said, "No, sweetie. We aren't even there yet. It's just the head." The doctor was shocked at the size of his head.

A few seconds later, they said, "It's a boy!" I cried, and my husband cried. He was gorgeous! The cord was wrapped tightly around his chest and was putting him into distress. The doctors and nurses were taking bets on what he weighed. Turns out he was 10 pounds even and 21 3/4 inches long!

He is now nearly 22 months old and approaching his 2nd birthday. He is a little over 3 feet tall already and 36 pounds. He started out big and hasn't slowed down yet!

We are expecting our second child in October of this year. Bets are already on as to how big this one will be!

http://www.birthstories.com/stories/big-babies/my-10-pound-blessing-6392/