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Baby Avery: St. Joe's biggest baby ever turns 1

Posted at 11:28 PM, Jan 25, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-25 23:37:02-05
Avery Denson doesn't have a favorite food. He loves it all, including cake.
 
Since it's almost his first birthday, his parents Allen Denson and Maxxzandra Ford allowed the celebrations to begin.
 
When we saw Avery his face was covered in frosting.
    
"He stays eating. He never gets full. He is a bottomless pit," Denson said.
 
And whatever he eats, Avery's metabolism keeps up .
 
"He is only 22 pounds," Ford said.
 
Twenty-two pounds is an average weight for a 1-year-old. but Avery is far from your average baby. He's perhaps the most famous little guy in the state and known throughout the world for making a grand entrance at 14.1 pounds – the largest baby ever born at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
 
"It's always in somebody's newsfeed. If it's not Facebook, it is Twitter," Ford said.
 
Ford and Denson never imagined that a year later people would still be talking about their baby and his record-setting weight.
 
"I thought it was going to be talked about and forgotten. It's still out there. It's shocking to me that it is still out there," Denson said.
 
"If you Google it, he is the first baby that just pops up," Ford said.
 
"We keep putting it in a scrapbook so when he gets of age to know, man, you were famous right when you came out the womb!" Denson said.
 
Mom and dad also shared some other big news from that day. They went to the hospital 17 days past her due date.
 
"I think every day that he was in there extra, he just gained a pound and a pound and a pound and a pound," Ford said.
 
Ford, who also works at St. Joseph's Hospital, said the staff wasn’t expecting this huge surprise
and at the last minute assembled one of the largest delivery teams ever.
 
"Literally 12 nurses came running in," Ford said.
 
The history-making entrance got national attention with another surprise twist when Ford  told everyone she didn't even know she was pregnant until the third trimester. We finally know why: Timing and history.
 
"It was the holidays. There was so much going on – shopping, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, Halloween – it was thing after thing after thing," Ford said. "I was like, ‘Oh my clothes are fitting a little tight. That is not cool. Alright, whatever, maybe it is just because, you know, the holidays.’"
 
And just like during her first pregnancy, Ford's  cycle seemed regular through much of the pregnancy.
 
"I didn't know until two months before I had her," she said about her daughter.
 
It's because of her daughter, who so desperately wants a sister, that these parents are planning to have another baby with one caveat
 
"It is all in God's hands. So if he wants him or her to be 16 pounds, so be it. I am up for the challenge. I think we will go C-section wise though next time," said Ford, laughing.
 
Avery's birthday is Friday, but the family plans on celebrating Saturday with close friends and family.