Hey, it only takes 9 months to make a baby. Maybe a baby shouldn't count as population; but maybe a ten-year-old should? And whatever cutoff you use, there will be people passing it. It would be reasonable for there to be a small base rate of population increase (and it's on the edge of possibility, under maximal fertility and fecundity to see maybe even 1% growth per turn?). I wouldn't mind if base growth were .1% or .2%, and the scales played off that.
It is a truly small issue though.
And, happy birthday!