Amanda Prentice prayed for years that she and her husband would become pregnant, but she never got to enjoy that excitement of seeing two lines appear on a pregnancy test or seeing her growing baby on an ultrasound. Instead, after struggling for four years with what she thought was infertility, one day she woke up, and there was her baby girl -- the one she had unknowingly delivered -- waiting for her.
According to WSMV-TV, Prentice became pregnant without knowing it and carried the baby nearly nine months with no hint that anything was different. It wasn't until she started having seizures and her husband took her to the hospital that they had any idea they were going to be parents ... and soon.
After a dangerous spike in blood pressure, Amanda fell unconscious, and her family learned why. It was due to pregnancy complications (which sound much like preeclampsia), and doctors delivered her baby five hours later. When she awoke two days later, doctors delivered the news to her.
She told the station: "The doctor came in and said, 'I've got good news and bad news.' He said, 'Your blood pressure has skyrocketed here in the last few days, but you've got a baby.'" And that's when she met her beautiful, perfectly healthy, little girl, who she named Allie McKinley Rose.
A beautiful and touching story for sure, but not drastically different from others we've heard over the years about women who give birth without ever knowing they're pregnant. In fact, TLC has a whole series titled I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. Still, each of these stories amazes me and really makes me wonder how on earth this could happen.
More from The Stir: Mother Delivers Twins 6 Weeks After Being Declared Dead (VIDEO)
Is it because these women had incredibly easy pregnancies that didn't involve the sheer and utter exhaustion, the nausea, backaches, and other oh-so-telling symptoms that both of mine did? Or is it because much of what we attribute to pregnancy is really in our minds ... or at least amplified by the way we think we're supposed to feel. I would have tried to harm you severely had you suggested it was all in my head while it was happening, but looking back, I do wonder. Have we become so accustomed to thinking pregnancy is full of aches and pains that to some degree we bring at least some of them on ourselves?
I don't know the answer, and it would be pretty cruel to do any sort of placebo test to try and get a scientific conclusion. But each of these cases does always make me wonder how much better I might have felt during my pregnancies if I didn't know I was pregnant?
Do you feel like just knowing you're pregnant can make symptoms worse? Can you ever imagine carrying a baby to term, not knowing you were pregnant?
Image via WSMV-TV
Tie-Dye for the Fourth of July!
Mom Survives Horrific Domestic Abuse
Kim and Kanye's Baby Name Predictions!
Moms Love Birthday Parties, Too!
Comments 124
With my 1st I had missed periods but 37 negitive pregnancy tests ( I took them almost every morning for 2 months straight cause I swore I must have been). Eventually I just decided I was having a combo of flu-bugs and weight gain and gave up the thought that I might be pregnant. I tried what a friend suggested (going to the hospitals in the area complaining of appendicitis sympotoms until one of them eventually gave me an ultrasound). So I offically got the diagnois of being pregnant at 27 weeks. I delievered at 33wks.
With my 2nd I knew I was and didn't believe the negitive tests. I convinced my OB to do blood tests until they came back positive because of what happened with false negitives with my 1st,
With my 3rd child (current pregnancy) I again knew that I was. But a test didn't revel that until 12wks. I was afraid of having another miscarriage so I didn't go to the doc until after that. By now I knew what to do so I just bought some pre-natels, and took care of myself for the 1st 3 months. I'm 6 1/2 months now.
I had no idea I was pregnant, until I realized the date and that I was late (we were trying and so I was charting my cycle). But even throughout the pregnancy, I would occasionally buy pregnancy tests to make sure I was still pregnant because I NEVER had any symptoms, until my belly started getting bigger.
what a miracle:0) An unexpected and wanted gift:0)
it's understanble if you've been told you were unable to conceive or have had late term miscarriages previously so I totally get it
The one thing I cant figure out is how do you not feel the foot in your rib cage? I know there are women who barely felt movement but I have trouble imagining
with my second (who is now 6 months old), i didn't find out i was pregnant until i was nearly 6 months along. i didn't have a positive urine test with my first until almost 5 months in, and didn't have one until almost 6m with my second. after having my first, my periods were really irregular, so i checked every month if i was late. i had a lot going on at the time, and attributed my queasy stomach, exhaustion and heartburn to stress. when i finally couldn't take it anymore i went to the doctors to find out i had just over 3 months to prepare for the birth of my second daughter :P so i can understand how women may not know for some time. but to not know until delivery seems a little sketchy to me.
A lot of the "symptoms" of pregnancy ARE partially (and for some people, completely) psychosymatic!! I'd say about 70% of the mothers/moms-to-be that I know (including myself) had no real sumptoms other than sore boobs and lack-of-period before we knew we were pregnant, but within a couple days (sometimes even a couple hours) of finding out, all of these symptoms suddenly begin. I was almost 2 months pregnant when I found out and felt fine (or normal...I have Crohn's Disease, so I'm never really "fine"), but within a week of the positive test, I had morning sickness, heart burn (which could have been from my Crohn's anyway), had to pee constantly, back ache, headaches, etc. Yeah...it was in my head and I KNEW that it was in my head, but it still didn't make it go away, because I was fully convinced that those things were "symptoms" of a normal pregnancy (with all of my health problems and being told that I couldn't have children, I was desperate for a "normal" pregnancy).