I didn't know I was pregnant

[forthekids123]

Have you ever watched it. The tv show that is? I watched it a few nights ago. I keep thinking "hey maybe I am really pregnant and the baby will just pop out of my body on my way to work one day." With my pregnancy I felt every symptom in the book, and I was huge, no mistaking it.

Have you ever known anyone who didn't know they were pregnant?

How many months have you or someone you known gone without figuring it out?

I'd love to hear stories

[Super~Single~Mama]

Ok, I'm forum crashing since I'm NOT ttc AT ALL right now.

But, I babysat for a gorgeous baby girl when I was a teenager - and when her mom had her little brother she didn't know until she was 4months along! And she's a doctor! She was so busy I guess that she just wasn't paying attention to her body, and finally took a test and then got an u/s for dating purposes!

[karmab]

well, not THAT long, but i was 7 1/2 wks before i suspected anything was up when i was pg with my TWINS (ds's 1 and 2- didnt take a test until i was 8w1d) and about the same when i figured out i was pg with dd (#4) (bf'ing and no af- fainted 3 times before an old tyme nurse looked at me and said, honey, you are pregnant, and i said, oh, no ma'am, that's not possible... HA!)

[dakotablue]

well, i looked like I had a basketball under my shirt at 7 months....but I know to people that went a long time without knowing.

my old boss who was an MD who did her field study under an OB didn't know she was pregnant until 6 months.

She found out because he doctor thought she had a hernia and gave her an X-ray. The Tech just said to her freaked out, That's not a hernia that's a baby!

Brilliant women, just thought menopause.


Another person I know, senior year of college no weight gain went to campus Doc because she kept feeling popcorn in her stomach. It was the baby kicking she was also around 6 month. She only gained 5lbs and never looked pregnant, gave birth to an 8 lb 2 oz girl.

[karmab]

oh yeah, one of the nurses i worked with on a high-risk OB floor didnt know until she was abt 5 mths. she had irregular cycles, and one morning she woke up and the sheets were soaked in blood. she thought, golly, i havent had af in forever, it must all be coming at once! called her doc and got in right away, and found out then. and the baby was perfectly fine. i forget now what it was- i think it was a marginal sinus bleed that resolved. she was back to work before long.

[Blanca78]

I know someone who didn't know until close to five months--she'd been told when she was younger that she couldn't get pregnant due to an injury or something. She just thought she'd had a bad case of stomach flu...

[TulsiLeaf]

8 weeks isn't that late to find out. I think on this board it is because everyone is testing like 8dpo hahahaha.

I didn't find out I was pregnant with my daughter until I was around 10-12 weeks along. I had very irregular periods and I am overweight. But once I hit 6-7 months along I popped out(I also lost 30 pounds)

[Aufilia]

I know someone who didn't know until midway. She had irregular cycles (PCOS, I think?) and is heavier. She went in for a pap and came out pregnant.

I have a hard time imaging it as well, but then, I was really sick in the first half of both of my pregnancies. I suppose if I hadn't been so crazy sick and hadn't been pregnant before, I could see missing it in that case.

[Violet2]

My mom didn't know until she was 5mos with me.

However, they didn't have hpt then and information was harder to come by.

I imagine not knowing was more common back in the day.

V

[enigo]

Imagine how much quicker your pregnancy flew by in the old days! If you don't find out until you only have 4 months to go...
These days we know by 10-11dpo!!

[karmab]

really, how did our grandmothers manage with no frer's or ic's! they had to kill a rabbit to find out. and our poor great grandmothers- they just had to wait until they got a belly and felt movement!

[WTHamI?]

I have a friend who didn't find out until about 5 months. They had to do IVF for her first pregnancy (twins). She hadn't had her first postpartum AF yet, the fact that she was nursing twins I'm sure had something to do with that, and didn't figure it out until she started showing. Considering her specific circumstances where she didn't think she could get pregnant on her own anyway, hadn't gotten her period yet (must've caught that first egg!) and started showing a little later, I can sort of understand.

[Blanca78]

Originally Posted by WTHamI?

I have a friend who didn't find out until about 5 months. They had to do IVF for her first pregnancy (twins). She hadn't had her first postpartum AF yet, the fact that she was nursing twins I'm sure had something to do with that, and didn't figure it out until she started showing. Considering her specific circumstances where she didn't think she could get pregnant on her own anyway, hadn't gotten her period yet (must've caught that first egg!) and started showing a little later, I can sort of understand.

I can totally understand that, especially if her symptoms weren't that strong. She probably thought she wasn't ovulating due to nursing. Amazing story!

[babygrey]

A good friend of mine had this happen recently. She had two losses in a row- the last one later around 17 weeks. She got pg w/i a month of that lost, but she didn't figure out she was pg again until she was THIRTY weeks along. She's a bit on the heavier side and had attributed her symptoms to recovering from the losses and grieving. She didn't even test until someone basically forced her bc she was sure it was all in her head!

She freaked out the rest of her pg, tho, bc she hadn't been careful for the pg, but her little son is just perfect.

[MovnMama]

My pregnancy experience was totally haywire. We were CTA and in the middle of buying a house. The stress must've thrown my cycle off, but I totally spotted right when my period was due. So went along a few weeks, feeling an emotional wreck. I kept saying to my partner, "What's wrong with me?" Dizzy spells, exhausted, you know the drill.

Finally I said to myself, "I'll take a test." This is, maybe, two weeks after the non-period spotting (I decided later that was implantation.). I got a BFN. I was relieved, as we were CTA, but still felt, well, funny. So another week and a half goes by, I'm still an emotional wreck, and I think, "Maybe that wasn't my period? I should take another test." So I do and... BFN! Again! I tell my partner I'm not sure what's going on, and he tells me it's all in my head. How supportive!

So I go along, and finally I'm pretty much due for the NEXT PERIOD now and I have a complete meltdown at work. Totally freaked. "What is going on with my body?" I got an appointment at a women's health clinic. I go in and get lost in the horrible medical complex and am a complete wreck and in tears when the midwife sees me. THANK GOD it was a midwife. I spilled the story, including my history of anxiety disorder, and she totally understands. "I won't even make you pee, we'll just take a blood test right now so you'll be SURE."

So Monday comes and she calls me and says "You tested positive for HCG but the levels are so low that it's not a viable pregnancy. You will most likely MC in the next two weeks. If you don't, it's ectopic and come in right away."

Well sh*t. If I wasn't an emotional, anxious wreck before, THAT did it. I just completely lost it. What if I did want that baby? How could the world take that away from me? So SAD! But wait, there's more...

So nothing happened. A week went by and I thought, "You know, that's crap. If it's ectopic, I want to know." So I called and basically forced them into doing an ultrasound on me. The doc came and and looked at my chart and then at me and said "you know, you did have a negative test..." I gave him the hand. "Please just do the ultrasound."

So he sighs, like I'm such a trial, and sticks the wand in there. And I'm going to quote him directly for you folks. He looked at the screen and actually said, "Well! Would ya look at that?" And then the Medical Assistant dashes out of the room. I wondered why? But I got dressed, thinking, "What the hell am I going to tell my partner?" We were CTA, after all. (For the record, his official response was "I can feel myself going bald and gaining weight right now.")

So I'm on my way down the hall and the midwife comes dashing down after me. That's where the med assistant went! She remembered me, and so did the midwife, from the blood test day. "Oh my god, can you believe it? I never would have guessed! In all my years, this has never happened! Come down to my office..." and she had the best demeanor and put me at such ease.

So there you have it. I think I was 10-12 weeks before I finally knew for sure.

[Blanca78]

That is a crazy story, MovnMama! Tell us more--so you went on to have the baby? Did they ever tell you why your hcg might have been so low? Had you been pregnant before?

Sorry for prying, I'm just really curious.

[BarefootGirl]

I don't really get how someone could not know for the WHOLE time, but I can see it taking awhile to figure out.

I didn't ever have any morning sickness and I had very irregular periods in the past. So if I hadn't been trying (and therefore on Clomid) I may not have known for awhile. I was tired, irritable, and had headaches, but those symptoms would have been easily ignored or explained away if I hadn't already tested and known I was preg.

But now (at almost 20 wks) I have a belly and feel movement, and would definitely be going to the doc to find out what the heck was going on if I didn't already know.

[MaerynPearl]

I have known two... one is a friend who has been on the show (lived in Northern Illinois but had baby up in Wisconsin on vacation) and the other is my cousin. Obviously you can get my friends info from watching to show so as for my cousin...

she already had 2 kids... she was on depo shot so not getting her periods... she had an anterior placenta so she didn't feel kicks as much (I have one this time, it sucks ) and she had just started a new tough job towards the beginning so the constantly being tired had a very obvious excuse... and she did not gain weight because she did not increase calories for baby... and was losing weight (while gaining baby weight) due to the demands of her new job... so she was the same size the day she had intense stomach pain and her mother took her to the hospital... as she was 38 weeks before (or so they estimate) when she was not even pregnant yet!

[nikirj]

I used to disbelieve that anyone could ever possibly get to full term without knowing they were pregnant. And then I saw it happen myself. I'm just going to c/p the relevant part of the blog post but you can find it here if you want to read the whole thing. I have to add that she had a body type where I would not even have suspected pregnancy if she walked by me, even at term. And that I completely believed that although she entertained some suspicions that she might have been pregnant, she had thoroughly dismissed them, the way some of us do when we feel intestinal gurgles and think "that feels oddly like a baby."

10 minutes before the shift completed, we got an interesting phone call...they were sending someone down in labor. The catch here is that this woman hadn't known she was pregnant.

Apparently, after having her fourth child, she had begun depo provera and had been getting regular shots for 10 years, including during this pregnancy, uninterrupted. She continued to have monthly "cycling" with light spotting, which happened even during this pregnancy. At some point a few weeks previous, she had become suspicious of pregnancy because she had felt strong movement, but then her monthly bleeding occurred on time, and she concluded that something else must be wrong. She came in to the hospital in labor, still not totally sure what was going on and entirely unprepared to give birth or have a baby. We felt her belly and concluded that she was somewhere around 38 weeks, we couldn't know really but it seemed reasonable that she was at term.

She apologized to me throughout. For what, I'm not sure; maybe for not having prior care, maybe for not having her things with her, maybe for having another baby at all, maybe she was apologizing to herself and her baby by apologizing to me.

Her baby came quickly. Fifth baby, after all. Vigorous boy in a sludge of mec, looking 40-ish weeks old. Mom had through the swift (half an hour from admission and being told that yes, she was pregnant to having a baby) labor apparently managed to come to terms with the fact that she was having a baby. "Wun smol boy!" she repeated after us. After she'd delivered her placenta, she sat up in her bed, nursing and staring at her baby. "Gonna have a STORY to tell when I get home," she said.

I also know someone who didn't realize she was pregnant until around 30w, kind of a perfect storm of being really busy and perimenopausal and spotting throughout the pregnancy. She did recognize fetal movements for what they were, though, once they got strong enough, and figured it out then.

[HulaJenn]

I am baffled by that show too, but only because every pg have gotten as big as a house and felt like a circus animal was inside me. i can't imagine not knowing - and especially the ones that have been pg before!
i think with this group, it would be virtually impossible - especially the ones charting? There wouldn't be anyway, you could miss a pregnancy with temps dipping and misleading Af right? (I ask, because I contemplated the same scenario as the OP and wondered if a baby was just gonna fall out 9 months away! LOL)
Neat show though. I am sure there are some not so happy outcomes for some that has had this happen to - with no prenatal care or healthy habits.....