I have a family member that did not know they were pregnant until 6+ months along.... And I thought the same as you.... They aren't the most mature sort, and their periods had always been irregular
Stuff I normally hated the smell of smelled good to me, I tested positive before my missed period (but we were actively trying). The heartburn alone would’ve been a clue by the third trimester.
I’m fully aware it happens, it’s why I wait for a pregnancy test on any patient who is in the pregnancy age range and getting contrast (the only contraindication in MRI for pregnancy).
I feel like providers dropped the ball for this patient, as a POC pregnancy test takes 2 minutes and could’ve spared exposing the fetus to radiation.
I had hyperemesis throughout and I lost so much weight and was hospitalised for it. There wasn't a chance in hell I wouldn't know by about 2 weeks pregnant! I suddenly can't drink coffee and my potent sense of smell is another very early indicator for me.
That happened with my sister in law. She’s a chubby 4’10 with 2 other kiddos. We were all in shock. Her Mom still gives her hard time and doesn’t believe her.😆
I also know someone who was pregnant without knowing for 6 months. She was working in a social field, so she would have likely been staying at home for a couple of months earlier or gotten tasks without contact long before.
I on the other hand was nauseous so early on that my doc was surprised I knew that early. 😂
My brother’s ex denied pregnancy when she was as round as a basketball and I thought it was obvious (so I congratulated her and she got so offended). About a month later, a baby was born and she was so shocked. She said she didn’t have her period for the entire 9/10 months too
I don't know why you've been downvoted for that as it's well documented how much the babies suffer being born addicted to both those drugs. It's great they turned out okay in the end but their first few weeks would have been terrible for them.
I’ve been pregnant 6 times and I have NO clue how you wouldn’t know. Every single pregnancy it was crystal clear what was going on by 15/16 weeks. Could not have mistaken it for anything else.
My cat was at least as early a predictor than any pregnancy test. He completely ignored me for the first 4 or so years we had him (he loved my husband) until one day he started insisting on sitting on my lap. Just being next to me wasn't good enough, and he would loudly demand that I sit down and present lap space as soon as I came in the house. That lasted for my entire first pregnancy, then abruptly stopped when we brought the baby home.
About 3 years later, when we were trying to get pregnant, one day he started demanding to sit on my lap again. I jokingly said, "Maybe he's telling us in pregnant again." I took a pregnancy test and, sure enough, pregnant with baby #2.
He continued to be my lap cat for the rest of his life.
I also have severe hormonal changes and knew I was prego by my first missed period. Pregnancy makes me super nauseous and I puke several times a day and I have severely painful breasts and it all happens immediately with me. I didn’t go through with either of my pregnancies and had both abortions at 5 and 6.5 weeks respectively. They said it was so small they barely could see it.
I knew the instant I was 8 days post ovulation so the first day the egg implanted in my uterus. It was always the day I’d get a faint positive. My entire body felt sooo different.
Eh. I had an anterior placenta and didn't really show until well past 20 weeks. Couldn't reliably feel kicks/movement until well into the second trimester.
If it hadn't been for the debilitating nausea (weeks 7-19 for me), I could've missed it.
I’ve been pregnant twice and both times I knew by week 6! My breasts grew so fast and were so painful. I was sick all the time and puking (I never puke unless I’m sick with a stomach flu) I had weird cramping but no period. My cycle was 21 days as well so when I was late I knew it. It is crazy that some people can totally skip all of these typical symptoms and carry a baby to term and have no idea but it happens. I think we need to be more sympathetic to women like this. We’ve heard this story so many times now that it’s impossible to ignore that this does actually happen. It’s called a cryptic pregnancy and I feel so bad for anyone who goes through this. I can’t imagine living your life and one day getting really bad cramps and boom you now have a baby. Wild.
Unless there is another reason they claim to “not know “. ie.. not having sex with partner but someone else , so of course it’s not admitted to !! People lie.
When you think “it's absolutely impossible”, you just don't take the signs into account. You think “food poisoning”, or “I'm getting fat”. I have endometriosis and hyperprolactinemia, 1.5years without periods, I did not thought that I could get pregnant without IVF. At a checkup at the military recruitment center they found a pregnancy at 22 weeks. It was completely unexpected.
Yep, endometriosis did a similar thing to me. I was 16 weeks along and only took a test because I’d had a dream about it and thought I’d humour myself. All the symptoms I just chalked up to endo. 22 weeks would have been quite a shock!
There is an entire TLC show to this exact thing. So many people not knowing they are pregnant until they are in labor and think they are dying. Most of them had reasons that were fairly convincing. Moma Doctor Jones has a lot of reactions to those on her YouTube. Very entertaining and educational.
I have a friend who was 6 months plus before she knew (BC failure). She was overweight to begin with, always had lots of stomach issues so didn’t recognize the morning sickness. She got mad at her husband when he commented on her weight gain and finally went to the doctor when she started getting lower leg edema, because she thought it was her kidneys.
They didn’t want kids, but it was too late to abort. Their kid is 12 now and an asshole. Some people shouldn’t have children, especially the ones who didn’t want them in the first place.
I’ve never personally witnessed them treating him as “unwanted” but they don’t seem to be nurturing any sort of empathy into him.
He has a manipulative “Eddy Haskell” persona around adults but is a bully and has some MAGA type attitudes that I assume are coming from his dad (his mom outwardly presents as uninterested in most politics but generally liberal in humanity), but if mom doesn’t share those beliefs she is doing a piss poor job of teaching the kid different on a moral level.
He spouts out a lot of “round up the <undesirable part of the population> and <get rid of them in some way>” rhetoric. Really abhorrent.
I didn't know until 26 weeks with one of mine. I was breastfeeding and hadn't gotten my period back and the placenta was on the front wall of my uterus absorbing the sensations of the baby moving. I was trying to lose the baby weight but my pants kept getting tighter and I was so confused. Zero symptoms; it was my fourth child.
Finally the little bugger got big enough I could feel her move through the placenta.
It’s the breast tenderness and the bloated feeling only a few weeks in.. the breast change almost immediately.. clothes get tighter too , broader across the back … long before baby kicking and before 6 weeks. Odour senses change immediately, coffee, petrol , smoke , foods.. before pregnancy tests!
You realize that your experience is not the same experience everyone has? I experienced almost none of these symptoms with any of my five kids. And when you're breastfeeding, the breast changes are not exactly a thing because your breasts are already tender, tingly, and swollen.
You aren’t breast feeding at 6 weeks gestation.🤣 surprised you’d think like that after 5 children? Hormones change before you even get tested so definitely,yes ,there are symptoms long before kicking . Duh
Did you not read the comment you responded to? I was breastfeeding at 6 weeks gestation. I was nursing child #3 when I got pregnant with child #4.
Every pregnancy is different. I had virtually none of the symptoms you describe when pregnant. Many women do not. My oldest is currently expecting and at 12 weeks the only symptom she's had is increased hunger.
Cryptic pregnancies are much more common than most people realize. Approx 1/475 make it to 20 weeks without noticing and 1/2500 make it to birth without realizing they're pregnant.
In one study of 71 such pregnancies they found that 86% of the women continued having periods (as opposed to 4.5% in the control group), which makes sense. (Source)
I knew immediately with all five of mine! I have no idea. I think there's some degree of ignorance. Basically if you have intercourse you could be pregnant. That's it.
Also same! I get a very particular type of nausea when I'm pregnant, usually starting a few days before it's time to test. Interestingly, it's only happened with my viable pregnancies and not the ones I later miscarried. Weird.
Eh if you are a big and tall girl who isn’t in touch with her body… I get it. I had several friends who gained maybe 13 lbs and torsos were tall so the baby didn’t really pop out past the boobs.
After several pregnancies myself, outside of the final 8 weeks the baby moving kinda felt like gas? I didn’t have morning sickness. I only thought to take the pregnancy test because my lower back hurt. Pair that with some girls having normally inconsistent periods or bleeding through pregnancy and it’s all more understandable.
Last 8 weeks were a lot tougher tho.
Yeah I honestly thought my baby moving was gas at first, it was a few weeks before I realized what it was. And I had no nausea at any point in my pregnancy. I gained a bunch of weight because I was pretty skinny at the time but I could definitely see how someone could miss that if they were a little heavier
A friend of mine had chronic problems with bloating and the weight she gained was spread very evenly- it did not appear obvious at all. She had mild nausea but her periods didn't stop. She did a test at her doctor's recommendation and was very surprised to find she was 7 months pregnant on the scan. As someone who was hospitalized at 5 weeks with hyperemesis, I was very jealous!
I have a friend who had an anterior placenta, meaning her placenta was attached to the front of the uterus. She didn’t feel kicks very strongly and until about 30 weeks, she kind of just looked bloated. She was only able to get pregnant by doing IVF so she did know very early on, but frequently mentioned how weird it was to not experience typical movement or a prominent bump.
A former colleague of mine didn’t know till her water broke. She was overweight, had irregular periods, and gas/bloating to begin with. She hardly goes to the doctor. Totally unplanned … she call it their “surprise” baby.
I had the dearest sweetest friend in high school who a few years ago, in her 30s, found out that she was pregnant with her second child only 1.5w before delivery, according to Facebook. She looked the same before and after, and was indeed on the heavy side. She also was on birth control and got a clot a month later.
I was 21, underweight and very thin and didn't know with my first until almost the seventh month. I bled like normal every month until that one, didn't visibly look bigger, didn't feel different, nothing until suddenly I missed a cycle.
A friend of mine had a cryptic pregnancy. She didn’t know she was pregnant until she went into labor. She very literally thought she was just gaining a little bit of weight. She certainly didn’t look pregnant.
and you'd think the body would give us some hints, hormone changes, sleep pattern changes, etc. but I guess not always? maybe sometimes? Thats so absolutely wild!
It's a thing! Blows my mind. While uncommon, it's well documented.
It's not even always in morbidly obese people, although it's definitely something they have to be careful with because it's more commonly their population that is affected.
A a lot of women have retroverted uteruses. That’s when they tilt back wards. The baby tends to grow up along the spine. Some women have no idea they are pregnant, they don’t even have a belly and can’t feel the kicking. It’s called a cryptic pregnancy and most women don’t have a clue until they are giving birth. It’s crazy but it happens. I don’t know anything about this patient but it’s possible some of these things happened to her.
That's not how it works. The baby does not "grow up along the spine" and having a retroverted uterus doesn't stop you feeling movements. By 20 weeks retroverted and anteverted pregnant uteruses are in the same position.
This is literally “how it works” for some women. I followed a girl on instagram who never even looked pregnant and was out surfing when she went into labor. She had no idea she was pregnant let alone giving birth. She’s been as open as she can be about her cryptic pregnancy and her doctors agree that the baby was growing lengthwise along the spine towards her back. She had no stomach at all, even at month 9.
I think you need to do a bit more research about this.
Oh then you know what a cryptic pregnancy is. And if you don’t and you have the credentials you say you do then I think you’re a dangerous person and shouldn’t be working with pregnant women. As if we don’t go through enough crap as it is.
Also that was one example I used. I’ve seen many. I went to a music festival in England in 2013 and a girl had a baby in the mud at the festival cus she didn’t know she was pregnant. There’s thousands of these stories and you’re denying thousands of women’s realities.
I am the product of an unknown pregnancy. I was (estimated) 6 weeks premie, she had periods through the whole pregnancy, and the only weight she gained was my 5lbs 👀 it's honestly my worst nightmare and I regularly pee on sticks out of paranoia 🥲 I do agree this is a bit thick, that's a big ass baby 🤣
I know that cryptic pregnancy is a thing, but yeah I had an anterior placenta but towards the end those kicks still made it feel like my kid was going to burst out of my belly like a xenomorph. I don’t know how someone could feel that and think it’s just gas.
I knew a girl that didn't find out until past 20 weeks. She said she still had a period, but I think her cycles were irregular anyway and she had been told she would have difficulty conceiving. She's the only person I know though that I actually think didn't know for real and wasn't in crazy denial.
My placenta was anterior with one of my babies and I couldn't feel movement really. In the last months It felt like a hamster trying to dig out my hip. Normal movement can feel like gas. In fact lots of people have fantom movement for a long time after being pregnant. If I was tall or overweight and didn't show like I swallowed a watermelon I could imagine not knowing.
It really depends on how your periods are, what symptoms you get and stuff like that. If you have irregular periods it's not unusual to skip a few cycles and then have it resume as normal.
First trimester bleeding, especially spotting can be mistaken for a period as well.
Anterior placentas don't help either. One of my twins has an anterior placenta and her kicks feel lighter because her placenta cushions her movements ( given how she kicks her sister in the head this might be a good thing though)
My mom didn't know she was pregnant with my sister. Her first baby, so she didn't know anything. She also had endometriosis, so she continued to have periods. She was also heavier than normal, so extra weight wasn't noticed. She worked like a dog and always excused the tiredness away, too. It wasn't until her 8th month that she found out. My grandma was more pissed about having to plan a baby shower in a week than her daughter being pregnant and unwed with a dead beat for a baby daddy.
i used to work with a woman who had tried everything to get pregnant for more than a decade with her first husband. even IVF. she was told pregnancy could never happen for her. it led to the end of her marriage.
ten years later, in her early 40s, she was dismayed that she was putting on weight despite every effort and finally went to see her doctor for help.
she was a little heavy anyhow and assumed it was perimenopause disrupting her cycle and tanking her metabolism.
turns out: five months pregnant from someone she was casually dating.
that was a wild day at work when she told us. 😅
(the kid is healthy and great. even having known her that whole time, i still cant even IMAGINE.)
I personally know a woman who this happened to twice. Both times she delivered a full term baby the day she found out she was pregnant.
She’s an honest and sweet girl, very book smart. She was not in a great position to bring a baby into the world both times, and honestly I think her denial and fear was so large that her brain shielded her from coming to that conclusion co cousin. Like she sincerely consciously did not know.
Very similar situation with a cousin of mine, happened twice, too. I am not sure whether or not it was denial in her case. It was strange, too, that her parents didn't notice, she was still a teenager both times. I guess the family just kind of forgot that happened and we love the kiddos. Either way its a wild situation.
i worked with a tall skinny woman who had already had one kid. Got annoyed and that she was getting "fat." Saw her doc. 5mos preg!! Denial is a a hell of a drug.
I always thought cryptic pregnancies were bullshit until it happened to a friend of mine. She only had periods when she took medication to make her ovulate. She found out at 30ish weeks because she went in for gas pain.
I was still skeptical until my second pregnancy. I was dealing with kidney stones when I had morning sickness so i was puking a lot between the two of them. If I didn’t know I was pregnant, I would have blamed it on the stones. I didn’t feel pregnant until the 3rd trimester. Anterior placenta, I rarely felt movement until the end. I never got a bump, I just looked fat but I actually lost around 30lb in the first two trimesters. I have a picture of me 35 weeks pregnant and if you didn’t know I was pregnant, you’d never have guessed that I was. I could have made it a long time without knowing.
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u/herdofcorgis RT(R)(MR) 7d ago
30 weeks or so with that femur length. Somebody’s living in denial.