Oh, no, no! I didn’t mean that all denials were psychological glitches, that’s why I was asking if there actually is such a thing. I vaguely remember reading something in some news article on infanticide, but couldn’t remember what the details were, or if I was completely misremembering.
Thanks for the link!
What about breasts swelling, thickening and filling up with milk? Even if you cannot feel the baby kick, or he/she is just a “quiet” baby, what about all the breast changes? Do some women just not have this happen? I’d think even a fairly overweight woman would notice this difference, even if she didn’t note the variety of other hormonal changes. Then again, perhaps this simply does not happen to every woman, or happens close enough to feel “similar” to what happens to her breasts during her menstrual cycle?
If I hadn’t known I was pregnant by any other symptoms, this would have been a dead giveaway for me. I simply never had felt the breast-swelling, sensitivity, thickening, and eventual ache of filling with fluid that I did during pregnancy. Never felt it since, either!
When I was stationed in Sicily in the 80’s, there was a woman who was diagnosed as pregnant after her 8th month. She had continued to have “spotty” periods, and since she was away from her actual husband, she was reluctant to see a doctor. She continued to smoke, and drink while preggers, and when the baby was delivered, he was fairly healthy except for the fact that he had no eyelids. None.
In the days after the birth, surgeons used his foreskin for replacement eylids. The kid is perfectly healthy, although…
He’s still a little cock-eyed!
I’m so sorry.
Most women’s breasts don’t fill with fluid until after they give birth. The hormones released by the detaching of the placenta (it’s like velcro - thousands of little microscopic fleshy “hooks” let go all at once!) and the subsequent uterine contractions begin the prolactin induced milk cycle - although for a few days, there’s no actual milk, but colostrum, the thin, watery yellow precursor to breastmilk.
How can someone who is pregnant have regular periods every month? Isn’t that basically the lining of the uterus being expelled?
Yes, but you can lose a lot of uterine lining and still keep the baby and placenta intact. Most women lose only a few tablespoons of liquid during their regular periods - it just looks and feels like more spread out (pour three tablespoons of wine on your countertop and see what a huge puddle it makes.) A pregnant woman, especially a heavy one, may have enough estrogen in her fat stores to trigger anovulatory (that is, “without ovulation”) bleeding that looks like a period but isn’t.
Happened to a friend of my mothers back in the early '70s. She was married, really desperately wanted to be pregnant, but had irregular, small periods and was very overweight. She had been trying and trying to get pregnant, with no success. She and her husband decided to look into adoption.
She visited my mother at our house at one point, and Mom’s dog stuck by the friend like glue. Now, the dog liked “welcomed strangers” but the level of attention was odd for her. Mom compared it to when she herself was pregnant and the dog wouldn’t leave her side except when absolutely necessary, and joked with her friend that maybe she was finally pregnant.
Some time later, she called my mother one day and said, “We had a baby!” My mother didn’t think she heard that right over the phone, and so tried to get her to elaborate, asking, “The adoption came through?” She said that no, she had a baby.
I do want to clarify that she did think at one point that she might be pregnant, but the doctor checked her out (dunno if he did a formal test of any kind, now that I think about it) and said no. She figured he’s the doctor, he knows best. (I think she even asked on more than one occasion.) Her periods were already spotty, and I don’t think the baby was very active - any kicks were counted as gas/intestinal issues.
I do not know. I realize that there is tremendous variety in human beings, but I’m at a loss to reconcile someone not being aware in these areas:
The feeling of being pregnant. I was 15 when I conceived and I knew (well okay, strongly suspected) even before I missed my period. I felt weird right away. And I was a typical pretty unaware-of-my-body 15-year-old - that’s how I GOT pregnant.
The “weird” feeling gets a lot weirder and more intense as the pregnancy progresses. Yeah, not everyone gets morning sickness, but there are so many other symptoms it’s hard to imagine all of them being either absent or sub-notice.
In my case, my stomach got big. Real big. This is separate from gaining weight: I gained 18 pounds during the course of my pregnancy, which might not be significant for many people, but I grew from a size 7 to a size 22 courtesy of my 54" belly. This was hard to ignore. Yes, I realize not everyone “shows” as much as I did but still.
The baby’s movements. Kicking aside, there’s all that swimming around and sticking the knees out and turning over and stuff.
Beats the hell outta me.
just to add to the data on not knowing. There was a woman a few years ago living around here who didn’t know she was pregnant but did know something was wrong. So she had been going to the doctor in an attempt to find out the problem. He didn’t pick up on the symtoms either. She was (IIRC) seriously overweight and neither person suspected.
Surprised them both when the time came.
She did figure it out a few days before the birth and was in the hospital at the time.
Well then count yourself lucky that you don’t get PMS. I’ve never been pregnant but everything you just described happens to me.
Not everybody will feel like you when pregnant. I’ve known some women to be sick as dogs and others tootle along without a single problem.
I went to high school with a boy who was adopted, as an infant, after his mother had been told she could not have children. At 42, she began to exhibit symptoms she chalked up to menopause: breast tenderness, weight gain, very irregular periods, etc. Finally, the weight gain (which she unsuccessfully tried to halt with diet) was getting out of control, and she went to her doctor. He told her she was pregnant. Eight months pregnant. That means that if she had delivered a month early, she would, indeed, have given birth without knowing she was pregnant.
Ditto, although I was 19. I knew less than a week after - I felt changes in my body almost instantly. My breasts felt different, and I felt different ,more moody perhaps.
Not knowing would be very strange to me.
I’m another who can’t quite see it happening–I could always feel a lot of movement. But then, I produce 10-pound monster babies.
I did read an article in Ladies’ Home Journal or somesuch about a woman who did it; she and her husband had given up trying and were going through the adoption process. She had PCOS, which has side-effects like weight gain, skipped periods, and so on, so she just assumed that the poundage was due to that and that she’d been eating too much spicy food. I think she gave birth about 6 weeks early, though. They were thrilled and more than able to give the baby a good life.
The Lab test was right. 
Sorry.
Yikes…the docs apparently told her that the baby was 3 weeks early! That little boy was well on his way to being a 10 pounder!
I’m still very skeptical. The father (my friend’s son) is a party animal and he seems like he would be difficult to get a commitment from so maybe she was afraid to say anything for fear he’d leave her. Now he’s a new daddy totally unprepared to raise a little one. Can you imagine the trip home from the hospital…“uh, honey, can we stop by Walmart to get a box of diapers and a crib and a baby bathtub and a stroller and a carseat and and and and and and”
Ugh.
When AdoptSon was five months old, the adoption agency we used called and asked if we were interested in adopting again anytime soon. A young woman had just contacted their agency after just discovering she was seven months pregnant - with quads - and they expected the birth to occur any day.
Granted, she was a fairly large gal, but quads??? Perhaps they were wedged so tightly in there they didn’t move around much?
(we passed on the children - the thought of five children under seven months old turned AdoptaDad a lovely shade of green.)
This is alternately fascinating and oogy.
Nicely done.
Do you mean liquid as opposed to other materials? Because the total volume of everything has got to be more than a few tablespoons. And the non-liquid stuff is the lining of the uterus too, right?
As is most of everything associated with pregnancy.
By “menstrual fluid”, I mean the stuff that comes out of you, chunky or not, during the time of your menses. It’s a little over half water, with very little actual literal blood, which is why I try not to call it “blood” or “bleeding” (although I see I slipped into that colloquialism at least once recently.)
“Normal” menstrual fluid is between 60 and 240ml per month. (cite) That’s between 4 Tablespoons and 1 cup. More than 240mL and you qualify for a diagnosis of menorrhagia, or excessive menstrual volume. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, but even those 4T ladies cover a lot more pads than you’d expect. A woman can easily fill a couple of pads a day with anovulatory bleeding while pregnant and still maintain sufficient placental attachment. I know, I was one of them.
Seriously, try the wine experiment. My midwife made me do it when I was in tears after spilling pumped breastmilk. Water based liquids spread an amazing amount on a flat surface, and a tablespoon looks like a lot.