People almost laugh in my face when I tell them my pregnancy story, as if I were crazy. Women take great pleasure in telling me all their symptoms to prove to me that there’s no way I could have been pregnant without knowing it.
But yes, it is possible—because it happened to me.
When I found out I was pregnant at 28 weeks, I was so ashamed—I thought I was the only person in the world to whom this had happened (it actually happens more often than you’d think!). But yes, you read that right: I found out at 28 weeks that I was pregnant after taking a pregnancy test that was about to expire and that I didn’t want to waste.
I know these questions are coming, so I’ll answer them right away:
- I had NO SYMPTOMS
- I was still getting my period
- I wasn’t gaining any weight because I was working out
- Yes, I felt some flutters around 20 weeks, but I thought they were cramps, and around 26 weeks I thought I had bowel cancer… the idea of being pregnant never even crossed my mind. I was a young, single woman who had other things on my mind.
The magic of pregnancy denial is that you don’t know you’re pregnant—you have no doubt about it—so your body doesn’t change.
As soon as I found out, within a week I had a baby bump. Crazy, right?
I laugh about it now, but it was a truly traumatic experience: in just one month, I had to prepare for nine months’ worth of work (setting up a nursery, buying the essentials, researching how to care for a newborn because I had no experience). Luckily, I had my family and friends to help me!
After that, I took pregnancy tests every month. Even today, I take at least one every 2–3 months, even if I don’t have any symptoms, because I’m afraid it might happen again.
Despite all that, I have no regrets because life gave me the most wonderful gift in the world almost three years ago: a beautiful, perfectly healthy little girl.
Thank you, life 🙂!