Woman from town called Surprise says she didn’t know she was pregnant until she was in labor
Surprise, indeed.
This new mom got quite the shock when what she believed to be appendicitis turned out to be labor pains.
After 38 weeks with no signs of pregnancy, Taylor Dobbins — fittingly from Surprise, Arizona — gave birth to a healthy son named Noble, weighing 8 pounds and 15 ounces.
“Nothing. No morning sickness, no kicking, no cravings, no heartburn,” Dobbins told AZFamily.
The 24-year-old has had an irregular menstrual cycle ever since a miscarriage a few years ago, which is why she didn’t think anything of a missed period.
She woke up in pain on May 18 but went to work anyway. Eventually the pain got so bad that she assumed she had appendicitis and went to the emergency room.
“I’m like something is really wrong here,” she recalled thinking.
After nurses ran tests, the doctor gave her the shocking news.
“’We ran your blood work twice and it turns out you are pregnant,’ I said excuse me?” Dobbins said, adding that they originally told her she was about six to eight weeks along.
But it turned out to be way more surprising — and extremely life-changing.
“She says, ‘So remember when I told you I think you’re six to eight weeks?’ I said, yeah. She goes, ‘Unfortunately, I was wrong. You are 38 weeks and five days’ and I was speechless. I’m like, there’s no way,” Dobbins remembered. “There’s no good way on God’s green Earth that I am giving birth.”
She quipped, “Single with a cat to single with a cat and a baby.”
This phenomenon is called a “cryptic pregnancy,” which is when a person doesn’t know they’re pregnant until late in the pregnancy, possibly even until labor begins, according to Medical News Today.
According to a 2011 review, studies found that the rate of cryptic pregnancies that continue to labor is about 1 in 2,500 pregnancies.
Dobbins was concerned about her lack of prenatal care, worrying that the baby would “come out missing some fingers or some toes or heaven forbid blind or deaf.”
Luckily, there were no issues.
“The best gift, honestly,” she said. “He was perfect. He stopped crying instantly the minute I grabbed him.”
She’s now doing her best to navigate all that motherhood has to offer.
“Was this the way that I planned it? No, but will we be OK once we figure it out? For sure. Definitely going to be a process though,” she shared.
