Pregnant and not knowing it?????

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

How could you be pregnant to the point where you actually go into labour and have a baby without knowing you were ever pregnant. Sounds bizarre to you? well it does sound bizarre to me.

TLC has been carrying a series entitled, “I did not know I was pregnant.” I was watching a couple episodes the other night, all because I could not find anything else on television to watch at that time of the night. There were two stories about two women who had been pregnant and actually gave birth to healthy babies, who did not know they were pregnant.

Each did a series of pregnancy tests which came up negative, had irregular periods and even had periods during the pregnancy. They also had no symptoms of pregnancy which included no visible growth in their abdomens or fetal movements.

The rationale behind this was that some pregnancy tests done at home comes out inaccurate because the tests could have been faulty, probably expired. The reason for periods could be that there was some abnormality in the placenta and in the case of fetal movements, some babies are actually more active than some.

I am sorry I could not buy into all of that. I can understand the faulty pregnancy tests although it seemed crazy that out of doing a series, all of them could end up being faulty, unless you bought from a set at the store that is completely faulty, how unfortunate. In the case of the fetal movements, in my limited knowledge of reproduction I would think that whether or not a baby is less active than others, you should be able to feel some movements. I can understand the case of the abdomen showing no sign of enlargement because I have seen women who were pregnant and did not have a noticeably large abdomen. Those women are said to carry the pregnancy in other areas of their body, namely the back. Not sure how accurate I am with that. I can also understand the absence of pregnancy symptoms because a few lucky women, apart from the growing abdomen, have little or no other symptoms at all.

Of course I am happy for these women who literally one day woke up and found that they are the proud parent of a newborn baby, but I am sure you are getting that I am also annoyed. Well, my annoyance, apart from the fact that I do not completely understand how this could ever be possible, stems from the fact that when my husband and I were struggling to have a child, I remember seeing some episodes of this same program. Many months when I felt I could be pregnant and would test, even though I saw the negative result, I would hold on to the fact that like those ‘lucky’ women, I could still be pregnant. I would retest and the same negative sign would appear but I would still hold for dear life that I could be pregnant and mine could be just one of those cases, where I would one day wake up in the hospital with my child in a bassinet beside me, without knowing I was ever pregnant. Of course, this did cause me more pain and anxiety when I realized I was never going to have it that easy or be that lucky.

I would imagine I am not the only one who have fallen victim to this and would therefore like to tell TLC that this program does cause women who are trying to conceive more pain and anxiety, pain and anxiety that they surely do not need any more of. I cannot tell you not to air your program but just to let you know the negative effects it has on women dealing with infertility.

My readers, please let me know if this has ever happened to any one of you.


Your feedback is anticipated, and in the mean time, keep clinging to hope.