The Badass Baby Size Guide

Fetal Growth Charts need a makeover.

The growing fetus is often compared to fruit… but does this really capture the intensity of our journey to motherhood?

There are a lot of websites and apps that tell you how big your embryo or fetus is at certain stages of development inside your body (look at parents.com or babycenter or, most popular, What to Expect). They commonly use fruits and vegetables to make your baby’s size accessible, so you can follow along as baby grows from chickpea to watermelon. These are all lovely and good and helpful and all that, but I couldn’t help thinking the internet repository was lacking something.

Let’s face it: growing a new human being inside your body for nine months and then squeezing them out of a little keyhole which morphs to accommodate that gushy, oblivious body is very metal. Compare labour with some stereotypically ‘badass’ spectacle. Like an action film with a hero getting shot. Say he’s bleeding out in the back of a getaway car after a narrow escape with his life. Say his partner sanitizes the bullet wound using cheap local liquor so he can dig the slug out of his heaving torso with no anesthetic but sheer adrenaline. Very stereotypically badass. Quintessential action movie trope. And yet, our hero’s body has not morphed to accommodate a new creature. All sensitive parts remain predictably intact. No watermelons through keyholes. It’s just bullet through bullet-sized hole. Simple extraction. Plus, the whole thing lasts the…