BONUS READ
I was born on April 7, 1964, in Launceston, Tasmania.
At that time The Beatles were riding high on the
BillboardHot 100 charts andThe Pink Panther, starring
Peter Sellers, was making people laugh at the movies.My entry into the world was with-
out incident. Mum’s contractions
began around midnight the night
before her due date. After opening
Mum’s door and guiding her through
the entrance and into the trusted
hands of the nursing staff, Dad was
told ever so politely, “We’ll take it
from here, Mr Fulton.”
Dutifully, Dad went back home to
look after my siblings. Mine was an
easy birth – at least that’s what Mum
tells me. When she saw me for the
first time, Mum thought I was on the
chubby side but just “gorgeous” (her
words, not mine). Her only concern,
if anything, was the size of my head.
Perhaps it was rather big – certainly,
it was bigger than she remembered
with her other three children. But as
Dr Sauer, her obstetrician, said noth-
ing and didn’t appear to be worried,
Mum didn’t give it a second thought.
We later learned that Dr Sauer was
worried.Throughout Mum’s pregnancy,
which had been textbook, he had
noted Mum’s smaller belly, and had
suspected something wasn’t quite
right. But without all the whiz-bang
technolog y we have today – ultra-
sounds, amniocentesis, DNA testing- his concerns would remain nothing
more than a hunch.
It’s true; I would have looked dif-
ferent to other babies on the ward.
Babies born with my condition will
have a larger head, a more pro-
nounced forehead and shorter arms
and legs. But nothing was said by any
of the medical staff, so as far as my
Mum was concerned, I was a perfectly
healthy baby weighing 4.1 kilograms.
Cradling me in her arms and star-
ing into my tiny chubby face, Mum
knew instantly what she’d call me.
“Ian... I think we’ll call you Ian,” she
whispered, smiling.
On the day Mum brought me home
PHOTO: FULTON FAMILY COLLECTION after her stint in hospital, Mark,
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