I didn't know I was pregnant--gave birth

Glow360

I was watching this documentary about women who didn't know they were pregnant until they gave birth. How could you not feel the baby move? Do you believe this is possible? This is just a fun topic, I thought I would put out to generate something interesting. Women who are having children who didn't even know they were pregnant are on the rise.

Glow360

My son kicked like a soccer player around eight months and would push his feet out my side and I could feel it. He is now a soccer player, but I wonder if maybe that is why women don't know is because it feels like they are gassy.....I thought that may be the case

cmelliott

I think they're crazy and oblivious. There's always signs, you just have to be able to pick up on them. And when they say they had a period the whole time I think they're even more crazy. If I was pregnant and bled like I do on my period that would not be healthy so I don't see how they could have thought they were having their period and still have kept a healthy pregnancy.

SmileyJay

I think it is possible for a very very small percentage of women. For example, it would be easy to miss a pregnancy if all of these were true:

You have irregular periods and do not track them at all

You are very overweight and would not notice an extra 20 lbs coming on over a 9 month stretch

You have a very poor diet and are used to a lot of gas, stomach pains, nausea, headaches, and being tired all the time... which would also lead to having plenty of extra weight to hide a bump

You are in complete denial because pregnancy would be unwanted... so you convince yourself you aren't. 

Most of the women on the show fit this perfect storm. My mom gained 14 lbs with me and I was an 8 lb baby... so its possible to not gain much. Some people also don't have a lot of pregnancy symptoms or active babies that are kicking. It's SO hard to imagine, but apparently it happens. I think most of them are just in denial and don't want their families to know they are pregnant so they just hide it as long as they can and try not to think about it... then BAM labor. lol

BeckyOff

Good friend of mine didn't know until she was 7 months pregnant.

She'd always had incredibly irregular periods.  The pregnancy happened during an incredibly stressful time in her life.  Any unusual stomach pains, heartburn, weight gain were attributed to stress.

kcisthebombdotcom

If you have an anterior placenta that can impact how you feel movement. I also never felt movement much during the day with my second pregnancy--only at night. I could see how you could get to 6-7 months pregnant without knowing, but full term seems kind of crazy. I took a womans studies class with a woman who didn't find out until eight months. She wrote a paper on it-- she was pretty small and she brought a picture of her In a bikini From shortly before she found out. You would have never known she was pregnant from visibly looking.

cmelliott

GhostMonkey said:

cmelliott said:

I think they're crazy and oblivious. There's always signs, you just have to be able to pick up on them. And when they say they had a period the whole time I think they're even more crazy. If I was pregnant and bled like I do on my period that would not be healthy so I don't see how they could have thought they were having their period and still have kept a healthy pregnancy.

It is impossible to have your period and be pregnant. Anyone that claims they had their period while pregnant just had vaginal bleeding. A period is the sloughing of uterine lining. Vaginal bleeding can be caused by a number of things, not just a period.

That's my point. The people who swear up and down that they had a period while pregnant are just ignorant and doesn't understand what true menstruation is.

JustCricket

I think a lot of times it's just not so smart people being completely oblivious of their own body. It doesn't hurt if they have an odd placenta placement or if they are overweight. They're often ignorant of what a period really is (no those few hours of spotting brown blood DO NOT count) I am in awe of how few women truely understand how their body works. It's really sad.

CowgirlK39

A friend of mine had a cousin who gave birth in the shower when she was a teen because she had no idea she was pregnant. She was over weight and just assumed her size was just her putting weight on. But I agree, it's pretty sad that there are women who do not understand how pregnancy occurs or how their bodies work.

easilyunamused

I worked with a girl who was pregnant with twins and didn't know it. She was on the shot so she never had her period and found out she was pregnant at her annual pap.

ngolimento

I have to admit, I wonder about this show as well.  It's amazing how many women are so out of touch with their bodies that they don't even know something big is happening.

jess9802

I'm extremely overweight and only gained 12 pounds when I was pregnant with DS, but it was absolutely undeniable by the time I was, oh 30 weeks or so, that I was PREGNANT, not just careless with my diet. By the end I looked like I'd stuffed a basketball under my shirt...a basketball that twitched and moved independent of the rest of my body. And I had an anterior placenta too; I knew when that kid was moving.

I don't know, it clearly happens, but I have a hard time making sense of these situations.

Piercingpixxie

Lmbo this show always freaks me out

jjsmommy0714

A friend of mine from my old job had a baby and had no idea she was pregnant. I personally think/thought that she was just tying to convince herself that she wasn't pregnant because she wasn't in a place where a baby was "ideal"

ngolimento

GhostMonkey said:

Peledreamsofrain said:

I have to admit, I wonder about this show as well.  It's amazing how many women are so out of touch with their bodies that they don't even know something big is happening.

Have you seen the pictures of some of them just days before delivery? There are some that aren't even rocking a beer gut, let alone a full on belly. Combine that with a baby that isn't overly active and maybe an anterior placenta, I can see it. I've had gas pains that have rivaled some of DS's kicks.

Yeah, I guess.  I lost a baby when I was younger, but I could tell by my body odor alone that something was WAY different, even by week 6.  It just makes me sad that modern society teaches women not to touch or know themselves intimately.

Soxyandiknowit

A classmate of mine was morbidly obese, and still is. She was told she couldn't have children, and given the name of a syndrome, and learned to live with it. She never had a regular period, so it wasn't strange to go several months without it. She went to the ED with kidney stone-type pain, and learned that she was in labor. She delivered an ELEVEN pound baby. Evidently she had gestational diabetes that went totally unchecked. Her DS has special needs, and she is a wonderful mother who now lives with "what if" guilt for the way that her pregnancy went.

I certainly wouldn't be very far along before I knew ! was pregnant, but I can see how under the perfect circumstances, it could happen.

BlckRoses

I worked with a girl who claimed she didn't know.  I think she was one of those women who are just in severe denial.  I could tell that something was going on and I thought she looked pregnant, maybe 6 or 7 months, but she denied it.  The week after that she gave birth on her bathroom floor. She posted about it on Facebook right away saying she had no idea.  

Glow360

It is amazing that people notice a pregnancy before the pregnant person, that is very bad. I just felt my sister in laws baby kicking--it pressed out the side of her belly--you would just have to know. lol