Couple Welcomes Their Own Thanksgiving Butterball: A 15 lb., 6 oz. Baby

Yes!  More than 15 pounds.  And he was — get this — three weeks premature.  If the baby had waited until he was full-term to make his debut, he would have been big enough to WALK OUT of his mother’s vagina on his own.  True story.

This part is especially funny:   The baby’s mom, Wendi Dolton, had no clue how large her son was, so when she heard a doctor say the number “fifteen-six” moments after the C-section, she thought he was referring to the time.

“And he goes, ‘weight.’

“And I said, ‘wait for what?'”

“And he goes, ‘no, the weight.”

Wendi’s next response:  “Are you kidding me?”

To which the doctor should have responded, “Who’s on first?”

As if weighing twice as much as his peers won’t demand enough respect, his parents also gave him a bad-ass name:  Axel LaVerne.

For now Axel is in neonatal intensive care at a hospital in Minnesota.  His parents say he’s being monitored for a heart condition associated with premature birth.  Not surprisingly, Axel barely fit in a preemie isolette.

“He lays up there by these little two pounders and one pounders and three pounders and here he takes up the whole cart,” explains Wendi. “And they actually moved him to a bigger bed. He’s a big boy, he’s broad. He’s going to be my little linebacker I think.”

Thankfully, Big Axel is doing well and his parents hope to bring him home soon.

Wendi is used to big babies.  Her first daughter Naomi, 9, weighed more than nine pounds at birth.  Sister Emma, 6, weighed more than 11 pounds, earning her the nickname “Pork Chop.”  Which will do wonders for her self-esteem when she’s a teenager.

The Doltons’ Thanksgiving baby now has a nickname too. “Butterball, yep, our butterball,” laughs his mom. “Big cheeks, big chubby cheeks and no neck.”

A nine pound baby, followed by an eleven pound baby and now a 15 pound baby.  Do we hear 20?

“We’re done,” say Axel’s parents almost in unison.  Adds Wendi for emphasis, “I’m not doing this again.”

Ah, too bad.  I can just see the headline now:  “WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO BABY BIGGER THAN TOM CRUISE!” And could probably do a better German accent, too.