You would know if you were pregnant SURELY?

[Gwladgwlad]

Heard one of those stories today- friend of a friend out on a friday night as normal, next day gets tummy pains & has a baby! No bump, no symptoms, out of the blue!?
SURELY you would suspect? Both my dc's were lively in my tummy, my belly moved a lot and I felt them constantly. Its not like having bad wind or something.
SURELY you would know!? Suspect things werent as per normal!
Aibu - it just leaves me amazed!!

That's the thing though, they believe the evidence they have, whether or not that evidence is a doctors word.

Some of us are extremely pregnant. Every symptom in the nth degree, even hazardous levels of morning sickness. Others have no symptoms, or so minor that they can be explained as other things, especially if they were using birth control or had even the least bit of regular bleeding.

it amazes me too however I went to uni with a girl who only found out when she went into labour on the bathroom floor. I saw her the day before and she just looked like she had had a good meal!! she was a size 6 and went up to a 10 but no bump really, she just put it down to being at uni and drinking and eating crap! her periods carried on throughout so she had no indication.

had I not done a test out of total frustration I wouldn't have known either and would have been putting mine and dd's life at risk. I was on morphine patches for pain relief and their side effects mirrored those of early pregnancy so I had no idea until I did the test. I was told at 21 thay I was infertile so I wouldn't have had any cause to consider it a possibility. it was only to shut a friend up that I did the test

I had a friend that didn't know until she was 7 months along, she was at a concert and sat on someones shoulders and fell off. She went to hospital and when they xrayed her there was a baby!
She was very very thin, size 4 probably and definitely no bump.
Her son was only 9 months at the time and she looked like she swallowed a football when pregnant with him.

I didn't have a clue I was pregnant until the very end. I'm a larger lady and I carry my weight on my tummy so didn't get a bump
. I have large, breasts that ache anyway and my job gives me back pain. I always had irregular bleeds so wasn't suprised by my continued infrequent periods (had three roughly three months apart during pg. Although they obvs weren't really periods). If I think back, I guess I did feel some movement but very faint and only occasionally - like butterflies and trapped wind. I didn't think anything of it.

I am sure it can happen.
However in my situation I was massively in denial about my pregnancy. Hid it from everyone. Even my best friend, who I saw daily, didn't guess. There are still some people who believe that I didn't know I was pregnant. I am a size 14, carried on wearing my normal clothes and wore a scarf a lot! This was my fourth baby. With my previous 3 I was showing from 3/4 months and had huge bumps.
I still get asked in the playground if he is mine as they didn't know I was pregnant. Some people I am honest with and tell them I was in denial. Others, I let them think I didn't know until I was in labour.

Aside from missing periods, I had very few pregnancy symptoms in both pregnancies until DC were big enough for me to feel them kicking. I was more tired than usual, but there's plenty of non-pregnancy reasons why someone might feel.more tired. I had the placenta at the front both times too, which muffles the sensation of the baby kicking. And if someone doesn't realize they're pregnant and isn't watching out for baby kicks, I bet lots of smaller movements could go completely unnoticed. I'm also overweight so the baby bump wasn't very obvious. There was a depressingly large number of casual acquaintances (including some who saw me in the week before labour) who didn't realise I was pregnant until they saw me with a baby.

So anyway, if I hadn't been TTC, and had had a reason to not expect periods (say if I was menopausal or on a contraceptive that stops periods), then I certainly could have got at least halfway through a pregnancy without even beginning to suspect anything. Probably longer as the early kicks would have been either unnoticed or dismissed as wind / muscle twinges. I don't know if I'd have completely failed to notice any movements for the entire pregnancy, but I certainly don't think it's impossible.

I'm 14 weeks. I haven't had many symptoms, although as usually happens my periods have stopped and I have subtle symptoms such as discharge & abdominal pain/ food aversions which could easily be ignored.

Like most FT mothers I was nervous until I had my scan. Amazingly after the scan when I relaxed and accepted there was a baby there out popped a baby bump! So I can easily believe that bumps can be concealed through a lack of "acceptance" by the mother- as would happen in denial.

however for a pregnancy to be genuinely unknown the series of co-incidences are too much for me too accept-

• contraceptive failure (small chance with any contraception)

Plus

• periods continuing

Plus

• no weight gain/ bumps/ enlarged breasts/ nipples

Plus

• no other symptoms (morning sickness, frequent urination, breathlessness, food aversions, increased sense of smell etc etc etc!!

Plus No movements felt later on

Even 2 of these variables being present at once is highly unlikely.

"Did you know that the first time you were pregnant? There are lots of people who don't know everything about pregnancy, so might not recognise some of the symptoms."

I don't think you need to know everything (or very much at all) about pregnancy to realise there's a seven pound baby in your abdomen tho. Surely it's obvious every time you bend down to put your socks on? I am very short tho- perhaps it might be feasible that it's genuinely easier to miss if you have a bigger torso to hide a baby in and you're completely delusional

I had no periods for 2 years, referred to consultant gynae, saw them twice, last time which the consultant said it was cos I was too light and exercising a lot. Then went onto experience bloating and constipation. saw GP who tried to make out I was stressed and gave me pills for IBS. took them for a while. Still no periods and "bloating" got worse. Went back to gp he felt my stomach. hmm I can feel something will refer you for a scan. Got a referral for a month later. Thought I had ovarian cancer.

While waiting for scan appoint. I went back to doctor. he felt my stomach again. OMG he said and listened and found baby heartbeat! estimated I was not far on.He referred me for scan at maternity unit. got an appoint for 4 weeks later. they dated me 6 months pregnant. no bump at all, and I had felt nothing but bloated.

Therefore my pregnancy was missed by both a consultant gynae a (I was actually 8 weeks pregnant when he told me I was too light to get pregnant, might have trouble conceiving and to come back to him when I did want to get pregnant), a GP and me because of what docs had said and because I had till then felt nothing move inside and not the slightest bump. I did though get huge after 7.5 months.

I didn't 'magic up no bump'. I just always seemed to hide it well. I still don't know how I did it. I saw Drs, teachers, nurses during the preganancy (even a social worker) with my other dc and not one of them suspected. Looking bad it is all very odd but it happened. Like I said, some playground mums would describe me as someone who didn't know they were pregnant.
Not suggesting anyone else was in denial like I was though!

If a doctor tells you there's no 6lb baby there, it's not all that delusional to believe him/her.

Both times I didn't find out until 16-20 weeks in. However with ds2 I found out at 19 weeks so knew I was, but had no symptoms until way past 30 weeks, and barely a bump until past then either. I think I could see bump from 22 weeks but might have been more I was trying to see something if you know what I mean. I was wearing normal size 8 clothes all the way through even when did have small bump at the end. Never felt ds2 move, he was 7lbs also.

Friend of mine didn't realize she was pregnant the first time round until she was 6 months gone - she'd been having bleeds that she assumed were periods and put down her tiredness and weight gain to having gone through a stressful period in which she'd changed jobs/moved house/etc., no obvious bump. She wasn't "in denial", it just didn't occur to her that she could be pregnant because she was having "periods" and had only vague symptoms. It was only when she started to feel particularly odd that she went to the doctor.

She did say it meant that she felt her second pregnancy (which she knew about from the start) felt like it went on FOREVER...

- contraceptive failure (small chance with any contraception)
Plus
- periods continuing
Plus
- no weight gain/ bumps/ enlarged breasts/ nipples
Plus
- no other symptoms (morning sickness, frequent urination, breathlessness, food aversions, increased sense of smell etc etc etc!!

That was me with dc1 however I did by chance find out when I was 5 months pregnant because I was being treated for arthritis by the GP and he did a pregnancy test prior to a course of treatment he wanted to prescribe, it was supposed to be a tick box exercise. Putting socks on was hard work anyway due to the arthritis pregnancy doesn't make it any harder.

I don't believe that people don't know. It's possible they are in denial. No way could you mistake baby movement for anything else.

I knew I was pregnant but i didn't have any symptoms at all. if I were still having bleeds or were on a contraception that stopped bleeds entirely I could have gone through most of my pregnancy without knowing. my dd didn't move a lot or if she did i didn't feel it. I had no pain or swelling and worked in a job i was on my feet all day up until two weeks before I had her.

It's quite a sensitive topic really.
I think the consensus is usually a woman must realise something is happening, especially when she's sexually active.
A study was completed in Ireland a few years ago, which explained the difference between a concealed pregnancy and a denied pregnancy. All of the women involved knew at some level they were pregnant, but for various complex reasons, either went into extreme denial or concealment.

Happened to someone I know. When she started to get 'odd' symptoms she did a pregnancy test. It was negative so from that point on she dismissed the possibility of being pregnant. She had no idea that testing too late on can result in a false negative. Neither apparently did her doctor!

To be fair we are talking about people who went into labour allegedly having no idea they were expecting rather than those who found out at 4/5/6 months

Some women never develop a noticeable bump.

Some women never put on significant weight.

Some women continue to bleed regularly throughout pregnancy.

Some women never feel more movement than that slightly gassy feeling.

There are three and a half billion (or so) women on the planet. It's almost inevitable that now and again all those things will happen at once to the same pregnant women. And when that happens she's very unlikely to realise that she's pregnant.

The thing is Serenity that many of those absences of symptoms are very common (or the symptoms can be readily attributed to other things). For example only 50% of women ever throw up due to morning sickness. 16% of pgs are completely unwanted (with another 30% "not exactly planned") so presumably a hefty sare of those would be contracteptive failure of some sort. Periods continuing through pg, or not having periods in the first place due to contraception or peri-menopause are both uncommon but not super-rare.

When you multiply all those probabilities together yes, the chances of them happening in any one woman are tiny. But when you multiply that tiny chance by the hundreds of thousands of women having babies every year, then it's not that surprising that a fair few of them will get that perfect storm.

I had no clue at all for 31 weeks . At all . Was working full time shifts , so felt permanently tired anyway . Had a bit of backache , put that down to the awful mattress we had , threw up once , put that down to a dodgy curry . In the pill , periods still going and then missed one . Chased a suspect the length of Kensington high street and caught and restrained him , did a test the following day and bing ! Positive . No bump , nothing . First midwife appt , I nearly gave her a heart attack . She said 'how far do you think you are.' "Oh about 5 weeks " says I . She has a feel and says " my dear girl , try about 30 ! " Emergency ultrasound said 31 weeks . Clueless .

But surely the alternatives aren't just "concealed pregnancy" or "denied pregnancy", there's also "just didn't know pregnancy" - it's a bit insulting to suggest that any woman who doesn't know they're pregnant "really knows it deep down, at some level, they're just lying to themselves/others". I believe my friend when she said she genuinely hadn't a clue. She was in a stable relationship, had a job, not in a situation where pregnancy would be stigmatized/unwelcome etc. and while the baby wasn't planned she was pretty happy about the pregnancy, had no reason to block it out.