Able-bodied

6:49 a.m. -- 3 mos., 12 days old

We have a big baby. Baby A weighed in at yesterday's doctor appointment at 15 pounds, 6 ounces -- 95th percentile. She's 25-and-a-half inches long -- 95th percentile. Her head was more than 17 inches around -- off the chart (or, more literally, above the 95th percentile curve on the pediatrician's chart).

Concerning the head circumference, the doc said that only one number was not worrying, that trends could only be told over time, such as over three measurements. Instantly, of course, that caused worry: What could be wrong with a big head? M and I both have big heads. (Literally; I'll leave it to others to gauge that statement's metaphorical truth.) Encephylitis? Another medical condition to look up.

All the other size comes from M's family. M's about 6 feet, while I'm about 5'5"; her shortest sister is 5'9" and her brother tops out at 6'9", whereas my dad remains the giant in my family at 5'8". All this is fine. I won't complain if Baby A's looking down on me by the sixth grade.

This 3-month pediatrician visit caused us parents little worry. Baby A's long over her thrush, her lone medical condition that required medicine. Beyond that, aside from a couple of colds, she's been healthy. And she seems to be hitting early all of the markers that indicate infant development. She recognized our faces, it seemed to us, before 4 weeks, and she started smiling around the same time. She laughed for the first time around 8 weeks -- laughed hard, repeatedly, when I played the "Rain" game with her. She started tracking with her eyes early, and she could track left-to-right, past the midpoint of her head, by around 8 weeks. Etcetera.

All of this parental gauging comes with a weird mixture of fear (is she normal?) and pride (is she a genius?), repressed quickly with thoughts that we don't want to burden her with expectations and that she's a blessing no matter her skills and talents or lack thereof. Etcetera.

One thing that has become clear to both of us is how "able-ist" we became when it mattered. M has worked with the disabled and the disability rights community, so she in particular is conscious of of the discrimination such folks face. But, boy, did we want Baby A to be born with all her fingers and toes and whatnot. We decided early that we'd carry Baby A to term if she had a high probability of Down Syndrome or other non-life-threatening condition. (We didn't want the tests that would make such diagnoses absolute.) But that decision made us face our deep desires to have Baby A be not just "healthy" but "normal" -- a troubling but incontrovertible conclusion.

Anyway, our devil-may-care attitude toward this 3-month checkup did not extend, in the event, to Baby A. She was calm in the waiting room. But as soon as we walked into the check-up room, things changed. She'd been nursing, and immediately she popped off M's breast and began to scan the room, moving her head from side to side. M said nothing at the time but was certain she was afraid. The kid stayed unsettled for the few minutes we waited, and we took turns walking her around.

Then the doctor came in, and we laid her down on the examination table. Her eyes got huge, and as soon as she saw the pediatrician loom over her, she begain to wail. Now we like our pediatrician, and he's never been anything but gentle with her. (We signed up with him in part because he told us in our initial interview, "These hands are for holding tushies.")

But he's also been responsible for giving her multiple shots. And he's a reminder of what I consider the most traumatic experience of Baby A's life: lying on her back in the maternity ward upon a glorified heating tray, naked, shivering, and wailing, for more than an hour shortly after her birth. I say "more than an hour," but I don't in fact know; after 15 minutes I couldn't bear any more helpless spectating and left the viewing window to catch some sleep. She was returned to our hospital room about three hours later, calm and sleepy. But for the first few weeks she hated any clothing changes or baths -- as soon as she was naked on her back, she began to wail.

That behavior has long passed. (Now she loves baths.) And yesterday's wails didn't accompany any activity of the doctor at all, much less probing or pain. There's no doubt that she recognized the pediatrician's face, stored from her last visit some four weeks prior. The cries didn't stop until he was done with his mercifully brief exam and I could pick her up. They started again even before he loomed over her a few minutes later to give her two more shots.

Afterward, the doc said he associated this behavior -- fear accessed from long-term memory -- with 6-month-olds. "That's typically when they start to hate me," he said. "I hesitate to make too much out of any one incident. But that's quite unusual for a child of her age. I don't know what it means, but it's something to note."

Rest assured, doctor, that Baby A's parents, having repressed all prideful thoughts that their child is doubtless the most ingenious infant in human history, did so note. Etcetera.