To all the moms out there – major respect. Giving birth is no easy feat or anything to scoff at.
The average baby weighs 7.5 pounds, and for an expectant mom, adjusting to this extra weight is something that definitely doesn’t get easier over time.
During the course of a pregnancy, a woman is likely to sweat more, feel tired, experience back pain, and struggle to sleep, owing to the burden of carrying a fetus.
Generally, the bigger the baby, the more discomfort a woman feels – so imagine if the baby you were carrying grew to 13.5 pounds.
A baby of this very size had grown inside Chrissy Corbitt’s uterus.
Chrissy, of Orange City, was used to having bigger babies, having previously given birth to her first three children at around 9 and 10 pounds each.
But in what was to be her final pregnancy, her belly just kept growing and growing.
Speaking to Inside Edition, Chrissy’s husband, Larry, recalled:
“It was like she had a huge beach ball, and it was getting more and more inflated.”
And then she gave birth – and her daughter weighed nearly a full stone.
“When the pediatrician showed her to me across the curtain, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s huge. I couldn’t believe it. It was like I delivered a toddler,” Chrissy said.
Chrissy, who was 29 at the time, had struggled with gestational diabetes and had been under the impression that her baby would weigh around 10 pounds when she was born. Many moms would wince at the idea of a 10-pound baby – but Chrissy’s reality is much more shocking!
Wisely, Chrissy gave birth via C-section a week early, and she said that everyone in her operating room cheered when the baby was born, which she’d never had happened before.
It took until Chrissy caught wind of her newborn’s weight that she discovered what all the fuss was about.
According to Chrissy’s OB-GYN, her daughter Carleigh was the biggest baby he had delivered to date.
When a fetus grows to become a much larger newborn than average, it’s referred to as fetal macrosomia. According to Mayo Clinic, babies that weigh more than 8 pounds, 13 ounces fall into this category – which is roughly around 9% of babies in the whole world.
Fetal macrosomia may be caused by maternal conditions, like gestational diabetes, or obesity. In many cases, though, it’s not known why a newborn is born larger than average.
It can cause some complications with birth, but luckily for Chrissy, everything went smoothly for her – even if her OB-GYN was a little shocked. Chrissy recalled:
“When he was pulling her out of me, he was like, ‘This baby is never going to end.’”
Everything ended well for the happy parents, who took their new daughter home to discover that she couldn’t fit into any of her newborn clothes. But would there be any more babies on the horizon? The answer to that is a definite no – Chrissy has had her tubes tied, and Larry joked that they “went out with a bang”.
After donating all of Carleigh’s too-small clothes and diapers to their local church, Chrissy and Larry settled into the hectic routine of new parents.
According to Chrissy, Carleigh is a “happy baby” who “smiles all the time.”
We’re sure that Carleigh will have to deal with remarks from family about being a large newborn for many years into the future. Let’s hope they’re not the type to bring out the baby photos on her 18th birthday!
Watch the entire interview in the video below.
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