‘My girlfriend recently gave birth but we didn’t know she was pregnant’

Sophie Collins

A woman entered the emergency room thinking she had kidney stones, only to find out she was in labour.

Her boyfriend took to the internet to tell their harrowing story of how they ended up with a beautiful baby but didn’t even know they were pregnant.

The 21-year-old woman gave birth last week and although she was showing signs of pregnancy, they said there was always “an alternate explanation”.

Telling readers what happened on Reddit, the young man (24) explained: “My girlfriend of 4 years and I recently became parents without any knowledge up until she went into labour.”

Getting into their backstory, he wrote: “My girlfriend has had some ‘signs’ of pregnancy but everything had some form of alternate explanation.

“She was throwing up early on, but was on new medication that has a side-effect of nausea and vomiting, which she stopped taking and stopped having sickness, so it made sense in my mind.

“Then she had extreme back pain, which she went to the doctor for. During the visit she gave a urine sample, and part of their testing included a pregnancy test which came back negative (most likely a false negative since she was still taking birth control and lowered her hormone levels) and maybe a blood test would have caught this.

“They prescribed her physical therapy, so she was doing that once a week while unknowingly pregnant. She still got her period, which I didn’t inquire too much about the details when she would have it but from what she told me, she still had bleeding each month just not as heavy and for less days at a time.”

Then, just last week she was experiencing what she thought was “extremely painful menstrual cramps, which turned into so much pain we went to the ER (which did not have a maternity ward btw).”

After some time there, the doctors sent him into the waiting room so the nurses could figure out what was going on – and at first thought it was a kidney stone.

After hours of sitting in the waiting room and hearing his girlfriend in pain he said: “Eventually I hear ‘there’s a baby coming!’ and a few minutes later followed by ‘it’s a girl!’ and a baby screaming.”

The pair were naturally over the moon about their new arrival, but because they had no idea she was on the way, they had many questions about the side effects associated with not knowing.

He said: “I had many concerns, she turned 21 during what would have been the 4th month of her pregnancy and we were drinking together at times. She was still on birth control the whole time, and also we were having sex pretty regularly.

“I was also concerned this baby might have been premature since I had no idea she was even pregnant.”

Doctors explained to the couple that she had a posterior placenta, “which explains why she did not look like the typical pregnant belly and had severe back pain. They also said they estimated her gestation period was 41 weeks.”

Talking about the moment he met his little girl, the young man said: “They invited me to come into the room to meet my new daughter and she is absolutely gorgeous, 7 pounds 11 oz and perfectly healthy.

He then jumped into action and got all of the essentials they would need before arriving home, and confirmed that mum and baby are both doing well days after the birth.

The two shared the news with their friends and families and said: “Everyone is extremely supportive and falls in love with this baby just like us. We were both concerned about how our families will react since we are not married and come from religious backgrounds.

“We are getting a lot of help from family with clothes, diapers, and other baby supplies. My girlfriend and I are very happy, and still get hit in waves with the ‘we are parents’ realisation.”