27 Stories About People Not Realizing They Were Pregnant That Are As Wild As They Are Terrifying
Recently we asked the BuzzFeed Community for their "I didn't know I was pregnant" stories, and they came through with their wild experiences. Here are 27 people who didn't know they were pregnant until SUPER late into their pregnancy.
We also used a few responses from this Reddit thread.
1."It happened during a really bad time in my life. There were so many guys I was sleeping with, and none of them cared about me at all. I was drinking the second I woke up, and I started smoking pot more than was healthy. I was also developing a bit of a crack dependency. My life was a hazy mess. I wasn’t taking care of myself at all, and when the morning sickness and all that started, I figured it was just a consequence of my unhealthy lifestyle and didn’t connect it to the fact that I was having lots and lots of unprotected sex. I somehow figured the reason my stomach was getting bigger was because I had been eating more lately. Didn’t even notice when I started to feel kicks. One day I was taking a bath when my water broke."
"Even then I didn’t know what was happening. The contractions began super quickly after. I was terrified. I still didn’t connect the dots. I thought I was going to die. I started screaming and crying. Keep in mind, this was at like 11:00 in the night, so it was a pretty big deal. An old woman whose apartment was across the hall from mine came over. Sobbing, I told her that I was dying and described what was happening. She explained that I was giving birth. I was shocked. She called over her friend, who had been a midwife. She and her friend gently helped me, and after seven hours of labor, I gave birth to a daughter. Twenty years later, the daughter is in college and I have my life together."
—Anonymous
2."Not me, but my brother-in-law’s father and his wife. ... She went to the hospital having abdominal pains, thinking it was kidney stones. Turns out she was in labor and had a healthy baby girl. The freaky thing is, she thought she couldn’t have kids due to endometriosis and the father had a vasectomy years ago that has apparently reversed itself. The chances of them having a child together had to be wildly low. Miracle baby! The father is about 50 years old and now has a brand new baby to take care of."
3."It happened to a girl at the high school my mom taught at. She... thought she had just been gaining weight over the holidays, and all the weird feelings she was feeling were connected to that. And she said her periods were always super irregular anyway. Her water broke in the middle of dinner with her parents and her mom was the one who realized what was happening. I imagine that was quite a scene."
4."A friend of mine went into labour in her bosses' office during her annual review. Had no idea at all she was pregnant. I wish I had been a fly on the wall when her boss called her husband..."
5."Not me, but my mom (pregnant with my little sister). She was on the pill and didn’t have a single symptom of pregnancy. She was getting what she thought was her period every month, but later learned that it was a small placenta bleed or something that mimicked her period pattern. She has always had back problems, so when it was feeling worse than usual for a while, she goes to the doctor to see what’s going on, and that’s when he asks her if she’s knows that she’s seven months pregnant. That was a BIG no. We figured we had at best two months to prepare for a baby, which was relatively easy since she’s done it before. Sister came early, I mean, early as in three weeks after my mom found out she was pregnant, she was giving birth. She came so fast that she even got to go to her own baby shower, at a whole nine days old."
6."I assumed that you couldn’t get pregnant from anal but it turns out that if sperm is near the vagina and accidentally spread to vaginal canal, you can. I learned this the hard way… I didn’t think that the vomiting and weight gain were related to a pregnancy since I hadn’t had PIV sex for more than a year. I learned what happened at a standard check-up. I was five months along!"
—Anonymous
7."My hairdresser was 15 at the time and was drinking, smoking, eating like normal and going to the gym for an hour every evening. She hadn't had any sex ed so when she went home one day from the gym she complained of severe stomach cramps and her mum took her to the doctor, who informed her she was in labor, and my hairdresser had to ask what labor is. I've seen a photo of her two weeks before her daughter was born, absolutely flat stomach and no sign of showing. Apparently she was bleeding each month so she thought she was having her period like normal. It's made me so paranoid ever since. I would never have believed that she couldn't tell at all if not for that photo. You really can't."
8."This happened to a friend of mine years ago. She was in her early twenties and a bit larger. She had irregular periods. She came to visit me one day and kept telling me her stomach felt strange...like it felt 'hard' and it felt like gas pains, but 'squirmy.' She wondered if she was pregnant. She showed me her stomach, and even though she was on the larger side, her stomach was pretty flat. I told her I didn't think she was pregnant. Two days later, her mother rushed her to the hospital with severe abdominal pains...turned out that she was in labor and within minutes gave birth to a perfect, full-term, full-sized baby girl! Perfectly healthy despite no prenatal care!"
9."This was in the late 1970s, early '80s. I was only in my teens/early twenties and multiple doctors had told me I would have a hard time getting pregnant. My periods were very irregular, plus some other issues. Keep in mind I was young and could only afford low-cost gyno clinics at the time so many different doctors and interns. They would not prescribe birth-control because of other conditions, assuring me I would not get pregnant. So I am 20 years old, suddenly have an insatiable appetite (I would get so hungry I was nauseous, NOT morning sickness), and am gaining weight. Of course I think it is because I am eating so much! Finally went to the doctor and discovered I was five months pregnant (not even on my radar, and home pregnancy tests did not exist at that time). Drank and smoked for the whole five months that I didn't know I was pregnant."
"Gave birth to a healthy 8 pound 13 ounce baby boy with no health issues, and my periods after pregnancy were like clockwork — every 28 days."
—Anonymous
10."Sorry if this is TMI, but here goes. I didn’t get any morning sickness or cravings or anything for some reason, and obviously, I got bigger, but I was recovering from an illness that caused me to lose quite a bit of weight, so I thought I was just gaining a healthy amount. The only thing was, I started needing to pee constantly. It used to be that I had a HUGE bladder and could make it super super long with needing to go at all. But now I would have to get out of bed to urinate, then five minutes later I’d be tucked in and cozy, only for my bladder to rapidly fill up with a fresh load. And this wasn’t just cute normal-human-being tinkling either, this was some Niagara Falls shit. I started just peeing in my bed — all night, every night — because that was the only way I could get some sleep at all. That’s when I decided to see a doctor. Guess what I found out? I was six months pregnant. Six!!! Well, that was in July. My wonderful daughter was born last week."
—Anonymous
11."A friend ... was 40, and had been told by doctors since she was 16 that she'd never be able to get pregnant. She and her boyfriend had considered adopting, but then her boyfriend got cancer and passed away soon after, and she didn't want to be a single mom. She was working as a police officer, and she was very petite and fit, but she wound up quitting that job in favor of a desk job. Apparently, when celebrating the new job, she had a one-night stand. She didn't really bother practicing safe sex and never had, knowing she couldn't conceive anyway. She gained a few pounds in the new few months, but put it down to having a less active job. Five months after that one-night stand, she's lying on her sofa after a workout, just wearing sweats and a sports bra and watching TV. Her stomach feels weird, so she looks down and sees something moving under the skin."
"She rushed to an urgent care thinking she had a parasite, and turned out to be five months pregnant."
12."My friend's friend ... was on birth control and everything. She broke up with her boyfriend and lived life normally; still went to hockey practice, had her period, no morning sickness, and even the stick result was negative. She did have stomachache a couple times and she went to the doctor twice — both doctors said she had a stomach ulcer. One time she was taking a bath and she went into labor in the bathtub, and just like that she gave birth to a baby girl."
13."My sister-in law was driving her friend home from a party because her friend started to have severe stomach cramps. Her friend gave birth in the front seat of my sister-in law's car! She never knew she was pregnant. ... She never noticed any unusual weight gain and I'm assuming she was on birth control or something that would have normally stopped her periods. The funny thing is that she has had a child before. It's hard to believe but it really does happen."
14."I only get my period twice a year, usually consistently in April and October. So I wasn’t 'missing' any periods and I wasn’t late. I didn’t have any other pregnancy symptoms; not a single one. One random September afternoon I was reading in bed and I felt movement in my stomach. I thought I had a tapeworm! Went to the doctor to see if they could get it out and surprise surprise, I’m 26 weeks pregnant ?? I do NOT want children and I take precautions to avoid it, I even had an IUD in at the time! I should not have even been able to get pregnant, and now I’m three months away from having a son."
"Well fortunately I am very blessed to live in a state where they do not restrict women’s rights whatsoever, at any point during the pregnancy. This was in 2019 and I have no regrets.
Oh, I did produce breast milk that leaked out of me for the following two months, though! I had to stuff my bras with toilet paper because i was lactating all the way through my shirts."
15."I had my tubes tied after my second baby. I always had erratic periods and did a poor job of keeping track of them, especially when I knew I couldn’t get pregnant again. I started having some stomach discomfort and was noticeably bloated but neither were bad enough to see a doctor, more odd than concerning. When the weird sensation in my stomach didn’t go away after a couple of weeks I realized it may have been a baby kicking instead of gas. Took a test and it was almost instantly positive. Went to the doctor to figure out what we were dealing with and I was 18 weeks along with a 10-month-old baby at home."
"Ladies, do your research and know the risks with your chosen method of birth control! I was too flustered to ask questions about my tube tie because my second was an emergency C-section six weeks early. I wish I had known to ask to have my tubes removed instead of tied!"
16."I had two pregnancies before where I missed my period, had nausea, started showing, and I miscarried both. On my third pregnancy (where I didn't yet know I was pregnant) I had a period — just not as heavy — and I just took it as finally my period was changing. I had no morning sickness, didn’t show, and I lost weight. During this time, my wisdom teeth were coming in and my insurance took three months to approve and so I was popping Vicodin like it was candy. I finally got my wisdom teeth removed in June. During the fourth of July weekend, I went out with my sister to the club and I had two drinks and to the bathroom and got really sick and throw up. My sister thought it was strange because I wasn't a lightweight, and I wasn't sure why I threw up. At the end of July, I finally missed my period I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.
"I made a doctor's appointment and when she asked me when was the last time I had a regular period, I couldn’t really remember, so she scheduled an ultrasound to find out the gender and how far along I was. She was thinking about four months. Four days later when I had the ultrasound, they said they couldn’t see the gender because I was further along that what they thought and the baby had their legs crossed. She told me I was almost eight months and my due date was Sept 25th. I called my dad and stepmom to tell them I was pregnant, and they said 'Oh how far along? One to two months?' and I said 'Almost eight.' They said, 'No way, we just saw you last week!' Well on Sept 11th, I started having stomach pains and went to the hospital and was in labor. I gave birth to a healthy baby boy who was 17 inches long and 6.2 lbs. ... My son is now 20 and the only pregnancy I was able to carry to term. I call him my miracle and the reason I call myself a mother."
17."My periods were never normal so skipping one wasn't worrisome. I had felt pretty shitty one time though, so I took a pregnancy test that came back negative. Tried again the following month when I still felt like crap (and still period-less), again negative. Third month and the test shows positive. I go to my first OBGYN appointment and was told I should expect to see a small sac on this ultrasound. Imagine my surprise when a fully developed baby waved at me. Turns out, I was 16 weeks along. Baby boy then decided to make his grand entrance at 29 weeks, so we joke my pregnancy was three months long."
—Anonymous
18."A hard partying girl I went to college with found out when she was six months pregnant. She had been used to not having her cycle because of her diet and all the party drugs so it didn’t occur to her to take a test. According to the rumors, she had found out and attempted to schedule an abortion and the doc laughed at the fact that she was waaaaay past that point. Her son was born completely healthy!!! Totally typical teenage boy now! Thank the Gods."
19."I was a lighting tech on cruise ships, and I started seeing a guy from another country. My period has never been consistent so when I didn't have one for awhile, I didn't think anything of it. My diet and lifestyle had also changed since joining the ship so I figured it was just messing up my system a little and I was losing weight from working so much. My contract ended and me and the dude are long-distance. I was getting ready to join my next ship in Asia when his contract on our ship was ending. As soon as he left the ship, he disappeared. He didn't message me, didn't video chat and blocked me on everything and I had absolutely no idea why.
"So I join my next ship, determined to just forget this guy. One day, my stomach felt weird. Something was swollen. Pregnancy was a small thought but I was certain that could never happen to me, I was so careful! Stomach continues to feel weird so one day while I have some time off in Thailand, I find a drug store and buy a test. I took it the next morning and it was IMMEDIATELY positive! As this was the first test I've ever taken, I went to the ship doctor. They tested me and, yep, it was true. They arranged for me to have an ultrasound the next day in Singapore because you're only allowed on a ship up until 24 weeks. At my ultrasound, this baby is already an actual baby. The doctor estimated I was about five months in! So I immediately quit smoking and drinking, called my parents and tried to get ahold of dude. He ignored me completely and I had to have a mutual friend tell him. He didn't want anything to do with me or us. By this time, I wasn't upset by that. Trying to figure out custody between Canada and Indonesia just sounds complicated. I was really concerned though because I had been drinking and smoking cigarettes *a lot* before I found out. I felt INCREDIBLY guilty. I stayed on the ship another two weeks and then came home and moved in with my parents because I had given up my apartment when I joined the ship. Well, I had my son in 2019 and I've NEVER been so in love!! He's the best thing to ever happen to me and I fully believe this is how everything was supposed to work out! He's smart, sweet, adorable and hilarious and no health complications from my partying which I'm so thankful for! All in all, worked out pretty damn well!"
—Anonymous
20."I found out I was pregnant in October of 2020, not just recently pregnant...seven months pregnant as a result of a nonconsensual act done to me. There was no way I could raise a child with only a few months to prepare, so I looked into adoption and have an open adoption now with my son and his dads. It could have gone so terribly wrong but I am so blessed to be able to be in his life. I did the best that I could in the situation I was in. My boy is now almost three and I was just able to give him a half brother with the man I ended up meeting not even a full month after I placed him."
—Anonymous
21."Missed a period. Took a test. Scheduled an abortion. During the ultrasound prior to the procedure the tech said, 'Well, you can try Montana, but you're not getting one here.' Turns out I was almost six months pregnant but had 'period-like' bleeding the first few months. My kid is now in his mid-twenties and has been the greatest joy of my life. I'm hard core agnostic, but I feel like the universe needed this kid to be born for some purpose."
—Anonymous
22."My grandmother had a ton of extreme mental illnesses (which she did not get treatment for, being a Black homeless woman in the 1960s). She didn’t notice anything — not her period stopping, not her weight gain, not her morning sickness, nothing. When she started labor, she had to give birth on the sidewalk, still not fully realizing what was going on. Fortunately, my grandfather (who had a one-night stand with her but they weren’t really in a relationship) was financially and stable enough to raise the baby, who grew up to be my mom."
—Anonymous
23."I found out I was pregnant with my second child at seven and a bit months. I had no symptoms, wasn’t showing, and had my period throughout. My subconscious must have known though, because I had a dream where I met a lady who said 'congratulations on the new baby.' I woke up, took a test, and here we are. I went for an emergency ultrasound the next day and almost fainted when they told me how far along I was; it was actually the only time in the entire pregnancy that I felt nauseous. In the end, baby was premature which meant the pregnancy felt even shorter — we’d really only known for a couple of weeks when baby arrived. Our older child is an adult who’s already left home so the baby has certainly turned things upside down…six months in and I think we’re still in a bit of shock."
—Anonymous
24."My cousin ... went to hospital with a suspected severe UTI and came out with a baby girl. She had no idea she was pregnant. ... Her mum was dying of cancer so thought the stress had stopped her periods. She made a bit of money selling her story to one of those true story magazines."
25."I was always late and never regular, and was under a ton of stress. My then-fiancé (now-husband) was a full-time student and working full-time. I was working 65+ hours a week, and my grandfather I was close to had passed in the fall of 2011. My husband's mom had just had a resurgence of her cancer, that spread like wildfire all over her body. So, I was stressed. We were stressed. Not taking care of myself. In April of 2012, I went to the doctor, because something didn't feel right, and I thought I could be pregnant. (I had taken three at home tests, but they all were negative.) Well, when they went to check to do the ultrasound, the tech stated, 'Wow! That's a head!'"
"They checked and measured, and I was due in seven weeks! I wasn't sure if I had wanted to be a mom ever, let alone in seven weeks. My partner and I talked for a long time, and now are going on 15 years together, with a happy and HEALTHY 11-year-old. We can't have any more children, so we are so extremely blessed to have him."
—Anonymous
26."I had just had two babies pretty much back to back (I only got three months of not being pregnant before getting knocked up again) so not to be too explicit, but I figured my pussycat would get to take a nap, if you know what I mean. Then I started throwing up and stuff, which I thought was just cause I was a pediatric nurse and it was flu season, so I was seeing a whole lot of contagious kids. Then the symptoms weren’t going away. At this point, I kind of knew subconsciously that I was pregnant, but I was unwilling to accept it — not because I didn’t want more kids, but because, like I was saying earlier, I wanted my hole to relax before pushing out another human. After this had been going on for like three months, I saw my doctor, and she told me that there was another bun in the oven. At first, I wasn’t sure how me or my body would handle it, but we pulled it off! My babies are grown now, and in case y’all are wondering, my you-know-what has made a full recovery."
—Anonymous
27."I didn’t know until I started to feel him. I thought at first it was gas. Until it kept happening. And it was more intense. Mind you, we had been together for over ten years, married for six. At this point I didn’t think we could have kids. Had truly given up. After about two weeks I told my husband this isn’t normal. We need to get a test just to be on the safe side. Turns out I was around seven months pregnant. And a month later my son came early by C-section. Two months early. He is doing great. Growing everyday. We can’t wait to bring him home."
—Anonymous
Do you have a wild "I didn't know I was pregnant" story? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form, and you could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.