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Mequon’s
Paul and Robin Buzzell and their three children - Delaney,
Lexi and Cami, shown below, - continue to deal with the
media attention centered on the birth of their youngest
daughter last year. The newest addition, Delaney, above,
weighed 13 pounds and 12 ounces at birth last June.
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She may have once briefly been known
as "The Big Enchilada" but really, the only thing truly
big about Delaney "Laney" Buzzell is the big way in which
the 1-year-old enjoys her life.
"She’s figured out what it
means to be No. 3," says her mother, Mequon’s Robin Buzzell.
"She’s very smiley, very happy and, as the third girl, she
just kind of goes with it. She’s always right in the mix with all
the kids."
"I think she has to be that
way," adds her father, Paul. "She always has people to pal
around with and her older sisters, Cami and Lexi, are always excited
to play with her."
That isn’t to say that Laney
isn’t still on the big side. On the eve of her first birthday,
she’s 28 pounds and 31 inches long, which still makes her an
overachiever on the standard height-and-weight charts.
"Right now I’m dressing her in
clothes in the 18 to 24 month range," says Robin. "But
that’s normal for us."
Laney follows the same big path as
her two older sisters: 5-year-old Cami (Cameron) entered the world
at 11 pounds, 14 ounces and 3-year-old Lexi (Alexis) was 10 pounds,
18 ounces at birth.
It was almost one year ago today when
the Buzzell family made headlines virtually around the world. On
June 23, when Laney was born at the Birth Place at Columbia Center
in Milwaukee, she made her debut at 13 pounds, 12 ounces.
She was the largest baby born at
Columbia Center since the 1970s and large enough to attract local
media attention.
But that was just the beginning.
"It was just crazy," says
Robin of the media coverage, which started with the local affiliates
and mushroomed into interviews on Good Morning America, the Today
Show, CNN Headline News and other notable news outlets. Jay Leno
cracked a joke about Laney and her story was turned into a cartoon
for Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Paul joked with Robin about Katie
Couric calling and Robin said the only way she’d do it was if she
could meet Matt Lauer.
"And sure enough, the Today Show
did call, exactly as I said," notes Paul.
"They wanted to fly us all out
to New York, but I said no," Robin remembers. "I told them
they had to come to us - we had a newborn, I was recovering from the
C-section and we had the other two girls."
As it turned out, they didn’t get
Matt Lauer either.
"We had hoped for Al Roker
because he’s kind of a joker and seems to like kids, but Ann Curry
did the interview," says Robin. "And then Paul happened to
mention why he thought Laney was so big and she seemed to get a
little uncomfortable."
In general, there are thought to be
two main reasons why big babies are born. The first is due to
diabetes; if the mother develops the condition, both she and the
baby have a tendency to gain water weight. Robin was tested before
and after Laney was born and did not have it.
The second reason why babies tend to
be large is if the pregnancy goes beyond term, which wasn’t the
case either. All three of the Buzzell girls were born at 37 weeks.
"So when neither of those two
situations apply, the doctor told us that you usually have to look
to the father for the cause," Paul says, a slow grin spreading
across his face. "So, I told Ann that the reason why Laney was
so big was because I must have ‘big seeds.’ She said something
about that being talk for the locker room."
The bulk of the media attention ended
shortly after her birth, though she has occasionally garnered
unexpected attention.
The Buzzell family was at State Fair
Park last summer when they spotted the television cameras from a
local television station. They asked the crew if they remembered the
"big baby story" from a few months ago. They did, and took
some footage of Laney and the rest of the family enjoying the fair.
"Sure enough, that night on the
newscast they kept talking about a ‘special visitor at the fair’
and we thought, ‘No, they can’t be talking about Laney,’"
says Robin. "But there she was at the end of the
newscast."
"I think we have a solid 50
minutes or so of video on her now," says Paul, who has an
oversized binder of clippings and computer printouts on Laney’s
birth.
At one point, Paul did an Internet
search on Laney’s birth and came up with hundreds of hits in
different languages from around the world.
A few months ago, a crew from the
Discovery Health Channel visited the Buzzells and had them re-create
the trip to the Columbia Center. The footage, as well as the story,
was scheduled to air on the channel’s "Medical Incredible:
Joined for Life" show on June 26.
"We re-created the trip to the
hospital and while she was born in the summer, they filmed it in
winter," says Robin. "I had a pillow under my gown."
And once again, it made the news. A
local television affiliate filmed the camera crew filming the
Buzzells. They have the clip recorded and when they play it, Laney
recognizes herself on the television.
After a year of life with Laney,
Robin is philosophical about all the media attention the family and
her youngest daughter have received.
"For us, this is just our normal
life," she says, watching Laney and her sisters dance around
the living room. "When the story broke, it was a happy story.
With all the bad news that people hear about, sometimes they really
need to hear about something good."
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