Have you ever heard of a woman going into labor NOT knowing she's pregnant?

Question

I was talking with a girl in my class today about pregnancy. She was asking when I was due, all of that, and the topic of her mom's friend came up. I thought this story was crazy and had to share it with you all:
Her mom's friend, at 30, had her tubes tied. At 47 she went into the hospital with bad stomach cramps and they told her she was in labor! She had a boy a few hours later.
I asked the girl how that was possible, not to be able to tell. She said she was a larger woman and just thought she was gaining weight and getting more tired with age... all that.
Have any of you ever heard of something like this? I have to wonder, how could she not feel the baby kick? It feels like my baby is in there doing karate!

tiffawiffany: the tubal ligation process is known to not always completely hold up. I've researched that so it is possible but it's a slight possibility.

gangbanga: how old are you? old enough to have a screenname like that?! Oh, okay... you're a sixth grader... I see. (lmao)

Answer 1

OH, YES! It happens very often. Usually not after having a tubal ligation, but there is always the chance the procedure was not properly performed, or the tube grew back. These things happen.

I've had 3 pregnancies. The first one went all the way to 16 weeks because I had no idea I was pregnant. My periods continued, sparsely, but enough. I think what I was feeling as "gas" may have been fetal movement. If you aren't thinking "pregnancy" then it's really easy to deny it in your head. That's what I did.

With my second, I managed to deny that I was in labor! After all, I just saw the MD that day. He told me that if I "gush" I should call him right away. Well, I had a slow leak instead. Besides, I had 2 more days to work, and there were 2 1/2 weeks to go!

Isn't it amazing how the human brain can rationalize practically any thing?

By the time I felt like I was having too much gas and diarrhea, I woke my husband and asked him to drive me to the hospital just so "they could check."

I was fully dilated! To top it all off, I was working as an RN at the time.

Denial is a VERY powerful force.

Answer 2

Yes I've heard of something like that before.

My husband's friend Kali has a wife named Sara, her sister is extremely fat. Well, just recently Sara's morbidly obese sister had a baby girl and she found out she was pregnant at 8 1/2 months, really at first she thought she had gas or something. Being a small woman myself I can't imagine what it's like being that large and feeling your baby move. Perhaps it feels differently, I really don't know.

When these sort of things happen the woman doesn't have very many side effects of pregnancy, they generally don't have a protruding stomach or it is covered up by a thick layer of fat. Most of the time it happens to the morbidly obese, but sometimes in does happen to tiny women who don't get a large pregnant belly at all.

And I've also noticed that these larger women generally produce small babies. Less room I guess...

And about getting the tubes tied, well the technique for doing so has changed. I've heard of women who had their tubes tied getting pregnant.

Answer 3

My sister, who's very thin, didn't find out she was pregnant until she was 6 mos. along. She thought she'd gained weight from eating too much (she'd only gained 12 lbs.), and kicks just felt like a flutter in her stomach. She thought it was the flu. She would never have imagined that her symptoms meant pregnancy because she was on the pill (she only missed one, and now I have a beautiful nephew!)

If a woman has her tubes tied and gets any symptom of pregnancy, they should see a doctor right away. Tubal pregnancies can be fatal.

Anyway, congratulations on your upcoming motherhood!

Answer 4

I use to work with a woman who had that happen to. It took her completely by surprise. She was a larger lady who had been having health issues for a long time, so she attributed all the pregnancy signs to her health problems. (She had been told she could never have kids)

The rest of us were very shocked when we came into the office on a Monday morning to find out she had given birth over the weekend!

Answer 5

Yeah I just had a woman tell me her story about that, she had her tubes tied and went on great for two years. Then all of a sudden she was feeling really sick and went to the Dr and they told her she was 7 months pregnant lol. She was very surprised, she was a rather large woman also.

Answer 6

Yes it is possible not to know that you are pregnant!!! i was 34 week pregnant and the same size (22) as i was always. I went to the doctor with what i thought was a pulled muscle off my pelvic bone - only to be told that i was pregnant. i wont tell you what i told the doctor but the end result was a beautiful healthy baby boy !!

Answer 7

My mom knew she was pregnant with me, (in 1988) but the doctors kept telling her it was not possible because of her age (37) and she had had a misscarriage a while after my sister was born (in 1970) then she went in for her psychical and the doctor told her she was pregnant (she was like duh) they also told her both my sister and I were going to be boys stupid doctors.

I also saw something like that on T.V. happen to a college girl. She was working at her job and went home because she was having stomach cramps and started giving birth in her dorm room.

Answer 8

It happened to a lady that works with my mother. She was helping her parents lay tile in their house and she started getting really bad cramps they had to rush her to the hospital. She didn't gain any weight and had her period the whole time. I can't remember her name but do a search for tampa, fl

What's even stranger is the baby was not inside her uterus it was growing in her stomach cavity. The baby is absolutely perfect.

Answer 9

I had a co-worker at my old job who was pregnant with her fifth child and did not know she was pregnant until she was seven months!
She is also a larger woman. It never made any sense to me
before... especially since this was her fifth child how could she not know. But I can see by reading the answers to your
question that the common factor among these women is
that they are overweight.

Answer 10

I have an aunt who had 13 kids (my cousins-never met many of them) and raised them in the backwood of Wisconsin. One of her daughters did this...at an amusement park. Thought she had a bad stomach ache, went too go to the bathroom and whoops!!! here comes the baby!

Seriously my sisters and I heard this and said exactly what you did. HOW could she not know??? She's bigger, and clearly an idiot and she said she had not idea she was pregnant.

I still don't believe it.