Learning you’re pregnant — just hours before giving birth

By Allysa McMahon
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

Tiela Harris was shocked when she learned she was pregnant. Two hours later, she gave birth.

The 22-year-old Glen Burnie resident woke up late on Sept. 10 to cramps in her stomach that were so painful they forced her to curl over the bed and bite her blanket for relief.

“The cramps lasted for an hour then went away, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Harris said. “At 4 a.m. they started again.”

Harris drove herself 30 minutes up the road to Anne Arundel Medical Center, calling her cousin along the way to ask if she would meet her at the hospital.

Once there, doctors told Harris she was pregnant–36 weeks to be exact.

“My cousin called my mom and I could hear her over-reacting on the phone,” Harris said. “I told my nurses my mom was going to kill me.”

Harris, who gave birth to a healthy 7-pound, 4-ounce girl, is not unique in experiencing what are known as “cryptic pregnancies,” a situation in which a woman does not know she is pregnant until a few weeks, days or even hours before going into labor.

Dr. Bryan Jick, an OBGYN in California, said in a recent article that it is possible for women to not realize they are pregnant. In fact, he said it actually occurs more often than people think.

“One out of 475 pregnancies is a cryptic pregnancy, unknown to the mother until after the 20^th week,” Jick said in his article. “One pregnant woman out of every 7,225 pregnant women learns of her condition when she goes into labor.”

“Spotting and light bleeding sometimes occur during pregnancy,” Jick said. “Some women–especially those who have irregular periods–can mistake this for a period.”

Suzanne H. Wheat, who runs a support group for women who experience cryptic pregnancies, said she has talked to thousands of women all over the world who did not know they were pregnant until shortly before giving birth.

“Hormonal imbalance is what causes cryptic pregnancies,” said Wheat, an expert on cryptic pregnancies from Atlanta who is earning her Master’s Degree in clinical health counseling. “Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and hormonal medicine can also cause cryptic pregnancies.”

Because of the hormonal shift, the body will not always know it is pregnant, Wheat said. The body can stall, which causes symptoms and movement to stop.

When stalling occurs, women do not experience any pregnancy symptoms and are not able to feel the baby move inside them, said Wheat.

“This is because their uterus is retroverted on their back and spine, not in the front,” Wheat said.

Thirty-four-year-old Kelly Stephens of Pasadena, Md., found out she was pregnant at 15 weeks after being involved in a car accident.

“They took my blood and urine samples to make sure I was okay after the accident,” Stephens said. “The nurse came back and told me I was pregnant.”

Stephens said three days later she made an appointment with her OBGYN and they told her she was in her second trimester.

“He told me I have a tilted uterus and I was carrying the baby on my back,” Stephens said.

Stephens said this is why she did not feel any symptoms during the pregnancy. Five months later she delivered a healthy 7-pound, 8-ounce boy.

“The babies are between 6 and 10 pounds,” Wheat said. “Some of the women have small babies due to smoking, drinking, or being on the hormonal medicine.”

Wheat said there are only a few support groups for cryptic pregnancies but they do not have the medical research to support it.

“I would estimate that I talk to about 1,800 women each year who reach out to me,” Wheat said. “There is no way to determine the exact numbers of cryptic babies who are born each year.”

Wheat offers a support group for women who have or are experiencing cryptic pregnancies. They are able to private message or reach out to each other in an online chat group.

“The chat groups allow women to share their experiences about their ultrasounds,” Wheat said. “We also share symptoms that we all go through.”

Wheat said women who receive support from the fathers are about half and half. Some of the fathers are very supportive, while others have ended the relationship.

Wheat’s Cryptic Pregnancy Support Group & the Gilmore Foundation is able to help women every day. She also has a website that provides facts and research for women who are seeking more information.

Meanwhile, back in Maryland, Harris’s mother, Stephanie Brown, didn’t know what to think when she received the call earlier this month that her daughter was about to give birth.

Brown left the house immediately and was greeted by security as she arrived at the hospital. The hospital staff was looking at her as if she was crazy, she said.

“Security was on alert for me,” Brown said. “My daughter told them her raging mom would come and was going to kill her.”

After Brown assured the staff her daughter was kidding, she was taken to her room. As she entered, she said she noticed that her daughter’s blood pressure was rising and the baby’s heart rate was flat lining.

“I did not want her to see the worrisome on my face,” Brown said. “I tried to console her and tell her everything will be okay.”

Brown said she was shocked by the news too because she did not notice any signs that Harris was pregnant.

“I see my daughter every day,” Brown said. “She was still wearing the same clothes and didn’t gain any weight.”

Harris was taken for an emergency C-section because of the spike in her blood pressure. Doctors rushed the surgery along, she said, because they had difficulty locating the baby’s heart rate.

“They were throwing papers at me to sign,” Harris said. “They started shaving me and were rushing me to do a spinal tap. As I’m lying on the table, me, my mom, and the anesthesiologist are trying to come up with baby names.”

Myla Ann Cornett was born at 8:11 a.m. Sept. 10^th, a perfect healthy little girl.

Harris said she did not experience weight gain, morning sickness, or cravings. This was the complete opposite of what she experienced with her first born. Harris had stopped breast feeding her son about two months ago and was experiencing spotting, but she assumed it was just her body changing and did not think anything of it.

“My feet were always swollen after work, but I thought it was from over working,” said Harris, who is a dental and O.R assistant at Arundel Pediatric Dental Care in Millersville.

The Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis delivers about 6,000 babies a year, according to Jill Smitley, the hospital’s clinical director of labor and delivery. Smitley did not have a record of the number of cryptic pregnancies that occur each year, but Harris was not the first.

“We pride ourselves on providing our patients and their families not only the medical support they need, but also the emotional support regardless of their circumstances,” Smitley said. “Unlike women who have up to nine months to plan for the birth of their child, a patient who delivers unexpectedly may need help with this transition.”

Harris assumed the nurses were going to judge her for not knowing she was pregnant, especially for not taking any prenatal care during the pregnancy. But that was not the case.

“One nurse informed me they see many cases of women who didn’t know they were pregnant,” Brown said. “There main concern was that my daughter and the baby were safe.”

Some of the nurses, Harris said, even came to visit her after their shift had ended, asking how she and the baby were doing.

“I would always watch that show ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,’” Harris said. “I never thought it would happen to me.”