Conference moira::parenting

    
    	What a story!
    
    	I hear of this happening (mostly from the Enquirer ;-)) and I find
    it so hard to believe. Everytime I'm pregnant, so very much changes
    with my body that I *know* something is up. Although this preganncy is
    a lot better than the last one (in terms of sickness), there is not a
    doubt in my mind that this body of mine is deep in pregnancy.
    
    	On the other hand, we have a friend (Hi Jackie) who has had a very
    easy pregnancy with no sickness and nothing at all different. In fact,
    she really wondered about being pregnant at the beginning because she
    didn't *feel* pregnant. (This is not comforting to me, as we lunch
    together and she eats a full and healthy lunch and I struggle to
    stomach something, anything, so that I can say I ate lunch ;-))
    
    	Just amazing.
    
    
    			Wendy

Yes, we had the same thing happen to my niece when she was 17.  She stopped
having her period, but thought it was because she was so thin (she's a 
professional model), and since she didn't have any symptoms, never really
considered being pregnant.  She went full-term to deliver a healthy 6 pound
baby girl who is now 7 years old.  My niece only gained 7 pounds through the
pregnancy, and was jogging right til the end.  The story usually amazes 
people as no one can imagine it happening, but it does.  In Michelle's case,
she never got the typical pregnant stomach because Christina's placenta didn't
attach correctly (I'm not sure exactly how that went).  I saw her the week
before she delivered, and she was still about a size 7.

She had cramps all day the day she delivered which, coincidentally was the last
day of school before a week's vacation, and her mom even gave her a Midol.
At 10:00 at night, when she went to the bathroom for the cramps, she delivered
my grand-niece.  When I got the call from my brother that Michelled had had
a baby, I asked him "Michelle who?" as I couldn't comprehend it.  Until you've
lived through it, you'd never believe this can actually happen.  In fact, she
returned to school the following week after vacation and didn't tell a soul
about the baby.  No one would have believed her anyhow.  Once she decided to
keep Christina and not give her up for adoption, we started telling people.

It's definitely one for Oprah, but it does happen.

Cathy

    I'm surprised at the fact that she was on the pill for the entire
    pregnancy....and had a healthy baby. That is wonderful news.
    
    I have understood that the presence of the pill would increase the
    chances of birth defects to a very high probability.
    
    Surprise...I would think that is quite an understatement!
    
    Congrats to your sister-in-law.
    JR

    With AJ's frequent stays at Umass Medical I became quite friendly with
    many of the pedi nurses.  I heard several stories of young teens who
    presented to the emergency room with "severe abdominal pain", who went
    on to deliver healthy babies.  Of course the only drawback there is
    that UMMC has NO maternity facilities, so most moms and babies were
    transferred up the street to Memorial Hospital.
    
    .... then there was the nurse on the pedi floor who was very pregnant
    with her second, and she and her doctor realized two things with her
    first pregnancy, 1) she had a tendency to deliver a few weeks early,
    and 2) had not even a faint cramp of labor, so she had to have almost
    daily OB visits with internals, and be put out on STD from about her
    eigth month on, just in case!  By the way, she did deliver a healthy
    baby just about on time, but NO labor pains!  (again NO L&D facilities
    at the hospital she was working)
    

    Geraldo (sp) just did a story on this.  He had 17 and 32 (mother of 1)
    year old women on.  Both had not signs of pregnancy - each had only gained
    10 lbs.  No one had a clue they were pregnant.  Neither one was
    overweight and they both had delivered healthy babies.  
    
    Get this though, the women who already had a child was at home with her
    daughter and delivered the baby herself.  Called her husband at work and
    gave him the news!

    A coworker here just related a similar sort of story about a distant
    relative.  The woman, who is described as *very thin* felt something
    like a PMS cramp, and excess secretions.  Went into the bathroom to
    find the baby crowning.
    
    for some fluke reason, she had cut a tag off of her three year old's
    new clothes that morning and left the sissors on the bathroom sink,
    something she NEVER did!  She delivered the baby, while the three year
    old was watching TV, recovered enought to move from the bathroom to the
    couch, and call both her husband and the ambulace for help.  
    
    The three year old still speaks in amazement of how mommy went to the
    bathroom and came out with a baby!  Fortunate though she was aparently
    not traumatized by the event.  It just simply left the parents
    scrambling for "baby duds" and diapers for the first few days.
    
    She too had a history of irregular cycles.
    

    <.1
    
    That exact same story was in a magazine I just read (Family Circle?),
    (the sissors in the bathroom, etc) the had a picture of her in the 
    magazine when she would have been halfway through her pregnancy that
    showed how thin she was.  She had gone to the doctors early on in the 
    pregnancy because she had developed a lump in her spine, now looking back 
    on it they believe the placenta was the lump.  
    
    
    
    
    

    I've heard of this third hand as it were, but I can readily understand
    how some people can be surprised at this - I know some large women who
    this might easily happen to.
    The mother of a highschool girlfriend of mine told me that when she
    was pregnant with my girlfriend, she didn't know, way into the
    pregnancy that she was going to have a baby, since, she was
    menstruating each month. As a very large woman she didn't detect any
    large fluctuation in weight either. One day she fell off the step of
    a bus and a friend brought her to the doctor since she had sprained a
    wrist doing it. The doctor gave her a full checkup to make sure she
    was okay otherwise. The doctor said:
    "Everything's Fine. The baby is unhurt"
    she said:
    "WHAT BABY?!?!"
    It was her first child.
    
    I've always liked that story....
    
    Monica

   I know someone who had a surprise baby.  To this very day I still find
 it hard to believe and I know that person!  Apparently she had her cycles
 all through her pregnancy and never had any idea that she was pregnant.  I
 was in a wedding with her just 1 month before the baby was born.  We were
 both bridesmaids and I have a picture of the wedding party and if I didn't
 know better there wouldn't be any way you could convince me that she was
 8 months pregnant at the time.  It still amazes me that she never had a
 clue.  The baby was 6 1/2 lbs and it was the first baby ever delivered in
 the emergency room at the hospital in Houston were they took her to.  She
 basically thought she was dying.  Her family rushed her to the hospital
 and the baby was born before they could transfer her from ER to Maternity.

   I remember her parents had to go on a mad baby shopping spree before the
 baby came home from the hospital.  She was married, but living with her
 parents at the time.

  The baby was named Austin and will be two years old in September. :)

Lisa