On Childbirthing and The Nature of Trouts & Babies
Since DCD (scientific abbreviation for “Distant Caveman Days”) men have been obsessed with weighing fish and women have been obsessed with weighing babies. / photo courtesy of the JLA Trout & Babies Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, in the Bad Part of Town, next to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum
ONE THING THAT’S ALWAYS INTRIGUED ME ABOUT CHILDBIRTH — besides the fact it’s hauntingly close to copyright infringement on all those “Alien” movies — is how people always tag stats on the entering of this vale of exasperation we call human life.
A baby gets born. The first thing to come out of a person’s mouth is the gender of said infant. The next is the weight.
A trout…
“It’s a boy,” beams a proud aunt, “Eight pounds, 12 ounces.”
Like it was a trout.
You probably have about as much a chance as winning the lottery and getting mauled by a grizzly bear while being struck by lightning to have an actual Guinness Book of World Records baby.
“Darn thing was Moby Infant,” pants a grandmother who was pulling Nose Trouble Duty in the delivery room. Her voice rises and falls like the sea, like Long John Silver. “Aaaargh. Fifty-two pounds, 6 ounces. She be an unholy beast, 3 cubits long. Strangled the delivering doctor and a candy striper. Aaargh...!!”
A baby…
The grandmother solemnly strides down the hospital corridor — step-click, step-click — on wooden peg leg, parrot atop her shoulder.
How do you change a 52-pound baby? You could lose a tooth with one of those random baby-feet kicks. It probably gets worse as the child grows into itself and then, before you know it, comes that day when the mailman delivers that letter all parents wait for:
“Congratulations! Your daughter has been accepted to Wrestling College!”
I could see blurting out that a baby weighs half a large bag of dog food. Personally, I’ve known many babies that large — even larger. Of course, I think in yelling something like that the politically correct word for the late 20th century is, “... immature.”
“Geez, Gwendolyn. Thank you so much for offering up the best years of your life (it’s 22-to-24, by the way). But I’m afraid I’m just not ready for a more committed partnership. Can’t we just keep dating and not suck the life out of this relationship?”
“Bob,” says Gwendolyn. “You’re so immature.” But actually, you know she’s thinking, “stupid big baby.”
The average baby weight at birth is about 7.5 pounds. I mean, to me, a pound or two either way isn’t exactly earth-shattering news like meteorites are coming. If I’m remotely involved in this birthing process, I think I’d like to hear other details. Like:
• “Does the thing have gills? Like the Little Mermaid?” Or,
• “Is it an accountant?” Or,
• “Are the genitals where the ears are supposed to be?” Or,
• “Did it come out not crying, but with a smug expression and a curious ‘666’ birthmark on the back of its head?”
Why do people immediately blurt out, of all things, the weight? I mean, if it’s less than 7 pounds, do they have to throw it back?
Actually, with the sorry state of HMOs today, I could see that.
“I’m sorry,” says the attending bean-counter holding a clipboard over the grunting and sea-sailor cursing mother. “You’re on Kaiser. Your insurance only covers limited stays at the hospital — like 10 minutes. I’m afraid you’re going to have to put the baby back in there, get dressed and mosey out to the front lawn as we have the table booked for a nice drug cartel family that pays cash.”
“Could you just tell us the weight?” begs the perspiring mother, awkwardly trying to swing off the operating bench.
“No,” says the HMOian.
Tinkerbell. Now that must have been an easy childbirth.
“It’s a girl. She’s an ounce.”
Funny. We don’t do that at funerals.
Lamentations and weighing of the corpse, an old Irish custom. Protestant. Catholic. We can’t remember. You’ll have to go to a pub and ask. /photo courtesy of Republic of Ireland Embassy, Washington, D.C.
“How much did he weigh before he went?” sobs the tearful widow.
“Three hundred three pounds, 2 ounces,” answers the mortician. “He was Irish. Most of it was warm beer and complex carbohydrates from a lifetime of fish and chips.”
