Not twins: Florida mom delivers one 14.1 pound baby boy naturally
Maxxzandra Ford delivered her son, Avery, on Jan. 29. The infant is the heaviest born at the Tampa hospital, and one of the largest-ever born in Florida.
(AP Photo/St. Joseph's Womens Hospital)
Tampa, Fla.
A Florida woman who delivered a 14.1-pound baby says she didn't know she was pregnant until her third trimester.
Officials at St. Joseph's Women's Hospital in Tampa say Maxxzandra Ford delivered her son, Avery, on Jan. 29. They say the infant is the heaviest born at the hospital, and one of the largest-ever born in the state.
Ford tells television stations WFLA and WFTS that after rapidly gaining weight last fall, doctors confirmed she was 35 weeks into her pregnancy.
Maxxzandra says because she's a twin, and felt so big, she initially believed she was having twins herself.
After 18 hours of labor, Ford naturally delivered Avery, who remains in neonatal intensive care but is expected to go home soon.
Ford, who also has a 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, says she "just melted" when she finally held Avery.
Avery's a linebacker in the making, his dad said, according to WFLA-TV.
While Avery may be the biggest born in Florida, Sosefina Tagalu of Daly City, Calif. delivered Sammisano Joshua Talai Otuhiva in August 2013. He weighed in at 16 pounds 1.7 ounces, reported the Huffington Post.
His mom says big babies come with big appetites. At five months, he weighed 25 pounds. "I feed him a bowl of [infant rice] cereal and when it's finished he looks at me like, 'Mom, where's the rest?'" she said. Tagulu waits 45 minutes before feeding him again, but he's almost always hungry. "He's a handful," she said, laughing.
The Guinness Book of Records says the heaviest baby ever born was 22 pounds.