"She Didn't Know She Was Pregnant Until She Was In Labor": People Who Have Had Cryptic Pregnancies Are Sharing Their Experiences
The whole concept of a cryptic pregnancy may seem far-fetched, but people experience this phenomenon all the time; there are women who have no idea they are pregnant until either late into a pregnancy or when they're in labor. Well, over on Quora and on Reddit, people discussed their shocking experiences with surprise labor and cryptic pregnancy. Here are some of the most fascinating responses.
1."I have a friend who was once very large and started getting fit. She cut out alcohol, went to the gym, and was losing weight. Her periods stopped. She went to the doctor — and was told it was normal to stop your periods when losing a lot of weight and kept getting fit. She found out she was pregnant when doing a pinch test for body fat. The instructor told her to go back to the doctor because she felt extremely firm. She gave birth two weeks after accidentally finding out she was pregnant."
2."I was feeling off, so I took a pregnancy test, and it came back negative. I just brushed it off. My older sister had stopped having regular periods in her 20s, so I thought it could be a genetic thing. I was working two jobs and 16-hour days, so I brushed off the nausea as being overworked and tired..."
"...I was at my evening job when I started 'leaking' thinking I had a UTI. Without insurance, it would be $150 upfront to be seen at a clinic. The next day, I trucked through my morning job, but by the time I got off and got home, I was keeled over in pain, and my roommates called an ambulance for me. I got to the ER about 5:30 p.m., and by 6:15 p.m., I had a daughter. She was just under four pounds, born at 32 weeks. It was a shock and a life changer. She just turned eight in November."
3."One of our patients didn't know she was pregnant until she came to the emergency room with stomach pain. It turned out to be labor. Because of a lack of prenatal care, the baby was admitted to the NICU for observation. The mother had a lot of trouble bonding with the baby and refused to hold her for a week."
4."My son is now three and a half years old. I found out I was pregnant only four days before I gave birth..."
"...I have PCOS, so for the decade before having him, I only got my period a handful of times a year. I actually didn't have one for about six months before I would have conceived him, so an additional nine to ten months wasn't very concerning. I took three pregnancy tests during the first couple of months (one that was probably too early to tell and two that were faulty). And this was during the height of Covid, so unless you were having an obvious emergency, you couldn't get an appointment with a gynecologist."
5."A friend of mine was a medical student at Dartmouth. He was doing a rotation in emergency medicine. An eighteen-year-old woman came into the ER complaining of abdominal pain. She was overweight but not obese. She reported that her last menstrual period had been five months previous. The ER docs were stumped, but my friend discovered the patient was in labor. It was a full-term pregnancy; she'd remembered the date of her last period wrong. She was astonished to learn that she was having a baby."
6."This happened to my sister. She worked a physically demanding job, had always been irregular, started feeling sick, and went to the doctor because she thought she was anemic. She was, but it was because she was 37 (!) weeks pregnant — I had seen her the day before her appointment, and you would absolutely never have known by looking at her. Anyway, she gave birth, I think, only 10 days after finding out. She hadn't taken prenatal, watched her caffeine or alcohol, or any of that for the whole pregnancy. The baby is now a healthy and thriving three-year-old who is smart as a whip."
7."I went for an abdominal ultrasound for sharp pain in my upper right chest (the doctor thought it was gallstones), and halfway through, as the sonographer touched me with the wand on my lower stomach, the screen was filled with the image of a baby (side profile of head and upper body). It was the most surreal experience. I have been pregnant twice before, and both times, I suffered pretty terrible morning sickness and pelvic pain..."
"...This time, I've had zero symptoms whatsoever. I'm quite skinny and have no bloating at all. I feel like I'm in a dream. The baby was measured at 22 and four. Now that it's been a few days, I suddenly feel kicks that are so obvious. I can feel my uterus now that I'm aware of it, and it's quite hard and high. I can see now that my nipples may be slightly darker. I'm literally checking my body for clues. I am still breastfeeding my youngest, so my period never returned. My first two were boys, and apparently, so is this one, so I'm shocked that this pregnancy is so different. I wonder how much longer I could have gone before I started to notice small clues. You hear stories about this, but I wonder if it's a dream."
8."My friend’s sister didn’t find out she was pregnant until 33 weeks. She had no symptoms, she was a plus-size girl and didn’t look any bigger, and she hadn’t had a period for over a year before she found out. She said she hadn’t felt any different, didn’t feel the baby move, NOTHING. It was a total shock to everyone."
9."I thought I had the flu or food poisoning when I gave birth at home to a healthy baby girl. I was on the Pill to stop my periods, so I didn't miss them. I had gone to the doctor somewhere around six/seven months because I was having severe heartburn, random vomiting, and serious anxiety. Still, the doctor declined to do a pregnancy test because I was on birth control. They told me I smoked too much weed and sent me home with anti-anxiety meds (which I thankfully didn't take)..."
"...I went into labor around midnight, and my baby was born at noon. I had been working with vomiting kids the day before and thought I had caught what they had until a little head popped out while I was in agony on the toilet. I moved to the tub and was a mom one push later. I was a firefighter for seven years and have a master's degree in healthcare, so I don't lack awareness. Doctors said I likely had an anterior placenta, which prevented me from showing (I'm plus-size and gained about 25 pounds throughout the pregnancy, but I just thought I was really into cake and beer recently). The position of my placenta also kept me from feeling any fetal movement. Before this experience, I couldn't believe how this could possibly happen to a woman."
10."My friend's daughter had irregular periods. She'd gained just a little weight. She was experiencing horrible pains, so she went to the ER and came home with a baby."
11."I have a co-worker. Her daughter was slightly overweight. She was on birth control. Her mother got the call while she was at work. "'Hey, Mom? I'm at the hospital, and apparently, I'm in labor?' The baby is now one year old. And the entire family thinks of him as a surprise blessing. My jaw was on the floor when my co-worker told me this story."
12."I don't know firsthand how it feels, but a friend did. She was sexually active (used protection all the time). She played sports all the time. Honor roll student. She was well-liked and had a pretty good head on her shoulders. Strict, religious family. All the typical stereotypes. Well, one night, she wakes up around 11 and has severe pains that are getting worse in her back. She wakes her father and tells him she thinks she needs to go to the doctor as she cannot handle the pain and she is scared. They take her to the ER, and the doc eventually gets the results that she is pregnant after they perform whatever tests they do in the ER. They also state that she is not only pregnant but in the beginning of labor..."
"Her parents flipped out. She started crying, and they admitted her. She had the baby girl the next day. Healthy seven-pound baby. She denied the baby at first. She had a light period the whole pregnancy and denied feeling any movement, weight gain, or any symptoms. It was said that she always used protection, which couldn't be real. But the doc said the baby had been under her ribs, and that is why she didn't show and possibly why she didn't feel movement (because the baby didn't have room).
She was very active in many sports, which could explain her lack of weight gain. She was unfortunate and struggled for a couple of months to accept the baby and her new circumstances. So did her family. Although they let her live with them, they didn't take the situation or speak to her for a while. The child's father was there, and his family was more accepting of the problem. But eventually, her support system came into place."
13."My friends adopted a baby girl who was born to a woman in the hospital who had no idea she was pregnant until she was in labor and decided to do an open adoption. Apparently, she basically had no symptoms, and she was in her mid-40s and thought she was going through menopause (therefore wasn't concerned by missed periods), really didn't gain much weight, and had an anterior placenta (which I hear sometimes makes it harder to feel movement). She thought she was having appendicitis or severe gallstones and went to the hospital to find out she was in labor."
14."A friend of mine found out when she was in labor at 38 weeks. I saw her the whole summer before she had the baby. She didn't gain any weight, there were no signs at all, and she was on birth control and used to having no period. She went to the ER with severe back pain. They did a routine urine test that came back positive for pregnancy. She didn't think it was possible. They did an ultrasound, and she was over 38 weeks and in labor."
15."I saw my aunt's sister three days before she gave birth to a baby she didn't know she was having. She didn't appear pregnant; she was in her late 40s and wanted kids but never could have them. The baby was healthy and full term, but the hospital treated her like crap…. she thought she was going through menopause, and being pregnant was not something that ever seemed possible."
16."It didn't happen to me, but a friend of mine accidentally discovered she was pregnant only in the sixth month of pregnancy due to a routine exam..."
"...She had always had her period, and her weight had increased only slightly. My friend thought it was normal weight gain; she had always been too thin and thought that since she was about to turn 40, she had finally begun to gain some weight. If she hadn't had that long-scheduled medical exam, she probably would have given birth without ever imagining she was pregnant."
17."I was 22 years old and in grad school. I had irregular periods (not an uncommon thing) and was on birth control... I only began to suspect I was pregnant because I had NO symptoms until my breasts started to hurt. At the appointment, they told me I was 26 and 6..."
"...To say I was shocked is an understatement; I felt like I was in a dream, unable to wake up from, and to date is one of the most traumatizing moments of my life. I was immediately given a bunch of appointments to make sure she was OK ( I was drinking, smoking, and taking meds that are known to cause cleft lip). Now, my daughter is an incredibly healthy, happy, intelligent, almost seven-year-old. She is my entire universe."
18."I work at a hospital. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a girl aged 24 come into the trauma room with severe pain & bleeding. She was pregnant and had no idea. She was terrified. The baby was delivered and went to the NICU; the mom survived, received a blood transfusion, and got to see her unexpected child shortly after."
Have you experienced a cryptic pregnancy, or do you know someone who has? Tell us your story in the comments or in this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
