My goodness, just how common an experience is this? Here's yet another amazing story of a woman surprised to find herself giving birth to a baby, without her realizing that she had been pregnant:Juanita Stead of Port de Grave was rushed to Carbonear General on New Year's Eve for what she thought was a kidney stone attack - she left a few days later with a bouncing baby boy.
Stead who gave birth to Nicholas George Stead at 12:31 Jan. 1 had no idea she was pregnant. "This is some kidney stone isn't it," she says cuddling her newborn baby. "We're all still in shock. We just can't believe it."
Juanita and her husband Terry were at a house party on New Year's Eve when she started having back pain.
"I had some pressure in my back earlier that afternoon but it was nothing to be concerned about," she says. "However while I was at the party it got a lot worse."
...
After some blood tests Juanita went for x-rays. The scan showed no evidence of a kidney stone. "The technician looked at me and said my dear you're pregnant with a full term baby," says Juanita. "And I said no sir, you got the wrong woman and you're looking at the wrong screen. There is no way I'm pregnant. I can't be."
However Nicholas was about to prove his mommy wrong and he wasn't going to wait to do it. About six minutes after Juanita was taken to the case room he made his grand entrance into the world.
...
"When I told Juanita's mom she didn't have a kidney stone, but a baby instead, she told me to go to bed, she didn't believe me," laughs Terry. "And my mother told me to give up telling lies. They just couldn't believe it. It still hasn't sunk in for any of us yet." ...
As if that wasn't incredible enough, consider this detail: it wasn't even the first time that the couple were surprised by a delivery!
... Juanita delivered their other son Cameron July 30, 2006 at home. While she knew she was expecting a baby at that time, Cameron arrived two months early.
"I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and out he popped, right into the toilet," says Juanita. "Terry actually scooped him out of the toilet and put him in my lap until the ambulance came."
...
"He's well now, but was far from healthy when he was born," says Juanita. "The doctors told us if we had any more kids they stood a 50-50 chance of having the same stomach disease. Therefore we didn't plan on having any more. Neither of us was going to take that chance."According to Juanita the last time someone asked her how Cameron was doing and if she was going to have more kids was at the post office on New Year's Eve. "I said I wasn't having anymore. Then just hours later he was in my arms," she says her eyes welling up with tears. "He was definitely meant to be here."
No matter how many times I ask my wife to explain how such an event might be possible, I still have a hard time understanding how someone can bring a baby to full term and yet not realize they are/were pregnant. As a male, "on the outside looking in" so to speak, I'm just profoundly baffled by this. I guess I'm simply suffering from a lack of imagination... or a lack of faith in miracles?
14 comments:
Charles Henry, I have to confess that, as both a female and a mom of two myself, I don't understand how it could have happened, either.
Maggie (youngest) made herself ROBUSTLY known, performing quite energetic gymnastics while developing, while Dana (eldest) was rather more sedate; still, it was quite clear they both were not any other kind of ~ailment.~
So, joining you in a scratching of the head. But you know, after reading this story, I'm left with the huge feeling of gladness that this mom didn't "choose" to end either one of her wonderful childrens' lives.
:)
...it was quite clear they both were not any other kind of ~ailment.~
What makes the story strange is that she had already been pregnant, yet didn't recognize, or undergo, the same symptons from the previous occasion.
I think it says a lot about mind over matter, doesn't it; I wonder if her affirmation that she could not be pregnant, led to her not noticing what has happening to her. She was so worried about getting pregnant again, and the fragile health of a potential second child, that she successfully blocked the, er, growing situation, right out of her mind.
This woman is a liar. She knew she was pregnant and just tried to fake it out. After having 2, I can tell you that a baby kicking is something totally different from anything a woman has ever felt.
These women try to get away with this, but in the end they are caught with the lie.
I got sick in the jungles of Central America some years ago, and when the medic told me he couldn't figure it out, I told him to check to see if I was pregnant. I tell ya, when you hurt that badly it doesn't matter how stupid the idea is, you want them to check anything and everything to get it fixed.
Findalis, in this case, don't you feel that there's room for the possibility that she simply denied what was happening to her, so completely refused to accept it as a plausibility, that she essentially lied to herself throughout her pregnancy?
If there is lying going on, can we not see it as a benevolent conspiracy: she so fearfully dreaded the likelyhood that a second baby would be born with dramatic health problems that she refused to recognize what was happening to her, and kept rationalizing away the many signs that you say are in evidence when a mother is expecting?
Sorry, but I don't buy it. Pregnancy is not just a little thing. It effects every part of a woman's body. It is as if she becomes a different species.
No 2 pregnancies are alike, but the symptoms are very similar.
She knew she was pregnant, and didn't get prenatal care. When she found out she was pregnant she could have had an abortion. But instead she did nothing.
The binding thread I've gathered about these miracle pregnancies is that the moms involved may have been surprised by their children, but were not opposed to having them in the first place.
Sadly, there are too many mothers who either abandon their children or outright kill them. These "miracle moms" are different.
It's entirely possible that such pregnancies develop in despite -- or in tandem -- with the mother's denial. I'm a firm believer in mind over matter. Or, perhaps, in this case, mind masking matter until it is too real to ignore.
Either way -- Findalis, I must disagree, somewhat. True, abortion was a choice, in this case. And, perhaps, these moms might truly have known they were pregnant -- and were just playing to an audience, by somehow pretending they didn't know.
But they DIDN'T choose abortion. And I'm so very glad :)
So am I Eowyn. But don't tell me that she didn't feel a child kick. My 2 girls were suppose to be place kickers for the Jets the way they kicked.
There was a time, 20 years ago now, on the east coast of America in a modern hospital in a rich and liberal state, where the pregnant-ladies ward was nearly equally divided between those having babies and those having second or third trimester abortions, side by side by side.
Those having babies were those who were organized in life, healthy, and had that array of personal attributes I ascribe generally to the middle class, bigot that I obviously am for pointing out such; those having abortions in late terms were poor in all senses of the word, the least of which is money. The poverty was in life-skill and basic Human decency.The latter group of ladies were having abortions due to health complications due to AIDS. No, not HIV. The latter ladies were dying, and they didn't know or didn't care that they were pregnant till they landed in the hospital ward.
Everyone in America is born equal.
Let me give my take on that: No one is born in America with a title and an entitlement. No one is born and therefore by birthright, King. One is born with, at most, the entitlements of family, community, and our blessed citizenship. As we are not born entitled to kingship, neither are we born disentitled to our families.
Equality is often confused by those who don't speak English very well with the word "fair." How can there be equality if there is a lack of equal opportunity?
Other than Plato and B.F. Skinner, few thinking people accept that all children are necessarily entitled to fairness of upbringing. Few accept the state gymnasium as fair. Few other than the Leftist ideologue advocates disinheritance of children in the name of fairness and equality. Few accept eugenics as the panacea of the accidents of birth that might favor one child over another.
Whoops! My mistake.
I find it hard to accept the idea that one can justify killing babies for the simple sin of the piggish lives of their parents. No baby to my knowledge is responsible for his or her parents. If it turns out that moms are pigs, then let them hang; but leave the children to live as equals before the laws we all share. Life might be terrible for such babies, but it's life nonetheless, and not up to us to take it from them just because. Kids might have terrible hard lives but then have babies beautiful of their own. Tormented babies have a right to try, just like any other baby has that right. Bad as a baby might look at birth from a mom on drugs, a mom dying of AIDS, somewhere, someone would love that baby, given a chance.
What a chance that would be.
Well put Dag. Well put.
I can spot the good moms in an instant.
Belated Christmas and New Year greetings to you, Findalis, and to you, Eowyn. And to all of you I didn't write to, which is everyone.
It ain't my fault, man. Like, the system, you know, ....
I can't even parody that stuff without getting sick of it.
Beautiful are you, all good mothers!
And a belated New Year to you too Dag. Missed your postings.
Findalis: "My 2 girls were suppose to be place kickers for the Jets the way they kicked."
Same here! (Well, youngest, anyway -- but eldest made herself known, too)
But, you know ...
I remember reading the first of these such stories quite some time back, in the 1980's. And I remember thinking, "It's obvious this is stupid. No one doesn't know she's pregnant. So why does this story even get any traction?" And I figured it would disappear into the great maw that is "stupid stuff," culturally speaking.
But these women keep resurfacing. And none of them seem to have been seeking the proverbial 15 minutes of fame -- they all seem to be ordinary.
No smoke without fire, thinks me ... I just wish I personally knew such a woman, so I could probe more deeply into specifics.
And dag, awesome to see your cavalier, irreverent self posting such good stuff :)
Dag: "Other than Plato and B.F. Skinner, few thinking people accept that all children are necessarily entitled to fairness of upbringing. Few accept the state gymnasium as fair. Few other than the Leftist ideologue advocates disinheritance of children in the name of fairness and equality. Few accept eugenics as the panacea of the accidents of birth that might favor one child over another."
Modern times excellently put.
*********
P.S. The happiest of New Year's to YOU, my friend -- but then, knowing you, all years are happy ones, even when they're not :) -- and thanks for the mom nod :) -- civilization depends on caring moms, and no mistake; so it's nice to know someone sees that.
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