An old colleague of mine insisted that her next-door-neighbour’s sixth (dunno, loads of kids anyway) child was born without labour. The woman woke up with a connected baby sleeping between her legs. Is this even remotely possible? Obviously the baby wasn’t a surprise, although I guess the timing was.
A former girlfriend’s daughter had a baby completely unexpectedly. Collapsed in the bathroom, was rushed to hospital and was a mother an hour later. No-one suspected.
She is a well educated and intelligent woman but had very few periods although she was late twenties at the time.
Everybody’s different. Some babies don’t move much; in some women there is padding (fat or placenta position) which hides movement.
Here, as I sit, currently 38 weeks pregnant, 12lbs heavier than usual and with a 7lb foetus visibly (and painfully) kicking me in the ribs, I don’t get it either- but it obviously happens.
Obviously, because it is something that can only be investigated retro-actively it is hard to kow what is going on. Some psychiatrists believe that there is a disorder characterised by a psychological dissociative state and serious denial, to the point where the woman’s body “colludes” in the process- by continuing to have light bleeds, not gaining weight, etc.
This is a rather interesting paper on the subject.
With my second pregnancy, I honestly did not know I was pregnant until my 26th week, when I got kicked. Even then, since I was, as far as I knew, on my period at the time, I was freaked out about some sort of floating tumor or something. An emergency ultrasound revealed the baby. I had no morning sickness, had lost 8 pounds, had no other noticeable signs of pregnancy, and like I said, what I thought were my regular periods. I have difficulty understanding how a woman could miss the kicking unless they had a retrograde uterus, but based on my experience, I have to admit it must be POSSIBLE. I’m severely skeptical about anyone claiming so, though. My second pregnancy was nothing at all like my 1rst and 3rd, which had normal-type pregnancy symptoms from the beginning.