I didn't know I was pregnant!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

As some have mentioned here, (presumably) not knowing you’re going to have a baby can mess up the nuturing, bonding process.

This is because what…? Lack of anticipation, incorrect mindset, shock? I guess the question is what specifically is there in knowing that a baby is coming that turns on the nuturing machine. In other words (I guess I’m asking this of women who have had children). If you just woke up one morning (not anticipating childbirth) and there was the baby ready to pop would it seem like an intrusive stranger if you didn’t know it was coming? I can’t really seem to phrase this question right but hopefully you get the idea. A similar question might be interesting for people who were anticipating adopting a baby.

22

Astro, there are a lot of rituals that lead up to having a baby: baby showers, setting up the nursury, having the wedding, shopping for clothes, for diapers, reading parenting books, sitting around friends’ kitchen tables discussing your plans, laying in bed together discussing your plans, months of trying out names. I suspect that all these little ritual serve, at least in part, to prepare us to do something that is not automatic: to let someone new into a close relationship: to, in fact, let some totally new person become the central feature of an established relationship.

And I am somewhat disturbed by talk of “those women must be out of touch with their bodies”, as if failing to realize you are pregnant indicates some moral or spiritual failure, a critical lack of maternal “instinct”. One of the biggest burdens new mothers face is the belief that mothering ought to be instinct, something that good mothers do automatically. New mothers often feel that there must be sometihng wrong with them because they don’t automatically know that the baby is hot or cold or hungry or bored or has a blinding ear infection. Motherhood is difficult enough without adding guilt that it should be natural.

I, myself, don’t understand how some people can’t just “get” algebra. It is amazingly self-evident to me. But when a person I know to be reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-motivated, and reasonably experienced tells me that they have to work their butt off just to apply a formula, I take them at their word. I don’t assume that they must be sufffering from whatever condition I would have to be suffering from before I couldn’t understand algebra (they must not be working hard, they must never have had a good teacher, they must have a brain tumor). I think we ought to extend the same courtesy to these women.

23

Goo, come here and be my best friend.

I take a test about every two months, too, just to be safe. Maybe that’s weird to some, but I don’t need ANY more little surprises.

24

This type of story was a staple of the daytime talk show circuit back in the early '90’s. (God, it seems weird to say that)

One lady had a nice trim figure, had gained all of maybe seven pounds, had had a very difficult previous pregnancy, so possibly figured that if she got pregnant again there would be more than the usual signs. Then she had some stomach cramps one day, figured, “OK, I’m pregnant and having a miscarriage”, and, minutes later delivered a full-term baby.

My favorite was the lady who delivered, called her hubby into the room and… He didn’t know what it was!!!

Um, ok, small, kind of human-shaped, lying just outside the entrance/exit of wife’s reproductive tract. What could it possibly be?

I’ve read a few of these type of stories in which the unexpecting mother was poor, uneducated (I’ve worked in market research, and you would be shocked at some of the most basic info some people don’t know) and basically didn’t know what the symptoms of pregnancy were. But the majority of cases reported in this thread seem to be fairly intelligent, well educated individuals…

except for the couple that stopped by Pizza Hut on the way to the hospital.

Well, OK I can see it in cases where there is some other medical issue going on and the idiot doctor misdiagnoses the pregnancy as a kidney infection…

but, geezy pete, you’d think they’d do a pregnancy test, just to be on the safe side.

25

No, no…it was on the way HOME from the hospital!

26

Am I the only one horrified by the part about the different drugs she was taking?!?

27

The advil and tylenol? I understood it to mean that she was taking it the day of the delivery, to ease the pain of the labour that she didn’t know she was having. I don’t think that would have harmed the child too much.

28

Regarding that picture: That skirt frightened me :eek:

I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was in my 4th month… but after that it became quite apparent. Heh. My symptoms were obvious.

29

A relative of mine, big girl, had always been irregular, months between periods was no biggy…

Anyway she was having terrible pain, she couldnt move from the couch. Her parents called the hospital and they said to bring in a urine sample (I dont know why).

They checked it and sent an ambulance as the urine indicated she was pregnant. she gave birth on the couch in her parents living room. Cody is just fine, he is eleven. Everyone was thrilled, the mom, the grandparents, even the dad.

Bizarre but true.

30

my friend’s mother had an unknown pregnancy. six years after having her tubes tied! a coworker of mine just found out she was four months pregnant with her second child. she had no clue until she saw her doctor. hence my discussion earlier today.

31

Yeh, um, that’s what I meant to say. I’m kind of in a fog after having an impacted wisdom tooth removed. I guess I still had some Lortab in my system when I wrote that post.

32

I’m obviously in the minority here. I’ve never had a baby, but it seems to me the best way would be not to know about it beforehand. What’s the point of knowing? Just nine months or more of worry, anxiety, fear of pain, etc. I’d rather be blissfully oblivious, if I had to have a baby at all.

33

Because having a child is something one really needs to be ready for.

You do NOT want to be spending those first days after birthing the child trying to shop for everything you need. And babies need a lot of stuff. A lot of real basic stuff. A place to sleep, clothing, cleaning supplies, food (if you’re not going to breastfeed), diapers, carseat (they won’t let you leave the hospital without one now), and other things. Some of this stuff can be a little expensive, too, so sometimes you have to plan when you’re going to buy these things.

Planning the pregnancy itself is generally the best way, if you can do it. That way, you’ll find out much earlier and can get a real good head start on things (my daughter was planned, and I found out that I was pregnant with her when I was just seven weeks along). My son was not planned, but my pregnancy symptoms are pretty obvious (my son was actually my fifth pregnancy, but only the third full term). I found out about him when I was about ten weeks along. So I had lots of time with both kids to get things in order before they showed up. And I am SO glad I did.

34

Not that I’d know, but it must be so shocking to have a baby just…pop out, without you having planned it. I mean, what if you didn’t want kids at this time, or ever? There’s so much lack of control, and you’re just kind of stuck with it. How does one bond with something one never really asked for?

35

Once when I worked at Planned Parenthood, a couple of women in their 40s came in and asked to speak to a counselor. They didn’t have an appointment, but no one else was in the office so I took them back. My assumption was that they were a couple, but it turned out the one woman had just called her buddy to come with her for support.

She was heavyset, but not unusually so. This is her story: Her periods had become irregular and she was having some unusual symptoms, but she attributed them to perimenopause. Finally she went in to see a doctor (that morning), who discovered that she was eight months pregnant. Having been a lesbian from day one, this was a bit of a surprise to her. Some months back, she’d had a few drinks with a male friend of hers (he was gay, too) and they ended up in the sack. She was 44 years old and it was the only time she’d ever had sex with a man. This woman was intelligent, educated, worldly, etc… but becoming a MOM had not occurred to her in her wildest dreams.

She wanted to see a book about pregnancy, showing pictures of the development of the fetus. She said, “I just figure I should catch up on what I’ve missed going on inside of me for the last eight months.” We looked at pictures of fetal development and she felt her belly. “My parents were really upset when I came out to them because they realized they’d never be grandparents.” she said. “Boy, will they be surprised.”

36

Are you honestly serious ? You’d rather not know ?

The point is that if you know you have options.

If you don’t want to be pregnant, you can arrange to terminate the pregnancy.

If you do want to be pregnant, you can save money, anticipate the new addition to your family, start thinking about parenting issues, decorating a room for it, learn about different stages in a child’s development, make sure your health is in good condition, quit your unhealthy vices and do the million and one other things that need to be done before having a baby.

37

Well, sure, obviously I’d want to know if I didn’t intend to have a baby. But if I did want a baby eventually, I can see it being a pleasant surprise.

I’m not being 100% serious here. I do utterly dread nine months of being hyper aware of everything my body is doing to grow the baby. I just want everything to go along smoothly without my mind having to be engaged in it 24 hours a day.

As far as preparing for it, 1) I don’t need to save money, 2) I don’t need to give up any vices, as I don’t have any, 3) I don’t believe in buying lots of specific baby-oriented products when what I already have or can easily get will do just as well, 4) my health is excellent, 5) I imagine the hospital will lend me a car seat to take the baby home in, and 6) undoubtedly my parents would be so overjoyed they would immediately inundate me with baby gifts.

But please don’t get upset with me. I won’t be having a baby anyway, and if I were to get pregnant, I’m sure my body wouldn’t let me get away with not knowing about it.

38

Hey, my cousin gave birth without knowing she was pregnant 2 years ago. I think I posted something in MPSIMS.

Anyways, she’s a 5’2" 170 pound girl. In retrospect, she realizes that the stomach pains and indigestion she was having two months before the birth was actually the kid kicking. But if you don’t know you’re pregnant, and you’re menstruating regularly, why would you think you’re pregnant?

The discovery? Go to hospital with really bad pain, thinking she’s got appendicitis, and she’s 10 cm dilated by the time they look at her! Her family couldn’t tell her dad (who was away on a business trip) for 24 hours. And when they did, they thought he had a heart attack.
Now everyone calls him InstaGramps.

39

I’m not upset with you but there are a couple of other things that might make you want to know that your are pregnant 1) taking OTC and prescription medication - some of this stuff you don’t want to be taking when pregnant. Unless of course, not only are you okay with a “surprise baby” but also a “surprise flipper baby” and 2) there are some foods you’ll want to avoid while pregnant - swordfish, unpasteurized cheeses, sushi, medium rare steaks…

So, even if you are “healthy” and don’t have any “vices”, there are some things that you could ingest while preggo and unaware that you would avoid if you knew.

40

I’ve been doing searches all over the internet on the subject, can’t find anything.

But, I think it has more to do with the vagaries of search engines than with the phenemenon not being documented. It wouldn’t be the first, or the hundred-twenty-first, time I’ve types a topic into a search engine or four and come up with many topics containing the same words as my topic, totally unrelated to my topic. I’v…e had to reword subjects in up to ten different ways before I got my subject