The 22-year-old girl hadn't known she was pregnant for the whole nine months of pregnancy.
This Girl didn't Know She Was Pregnant For The Whole Nine Months Of Pregnancy
Just before Christmas in 2016, Ally Orpher found herself in
excruciating pain from what she thought were menstrual cramps. She had no idea
she was actually in labor and just hours away from giving birth to a baby boy
she wasn't expecting.
Ally didn't look pregnant, and she even took a pregnancy
test soon after the cramps got bad, and that came back negative. I woke up the
morning of December 21st, feeling absolutely normal, not knowing what I was about
to go through, Ally, who was 22 at the time, says.
Just a couple hours later, I started feeling some minor
cramping and brushed it off as nothing. It gradually became a little more
painful throughout the day so I figured it was the time of the month for me as
I had started bleeding a bit too. A part-time high school cheerleading trainer,
Ally went to work as usual, but that night, the pain intensified.
She tried taking ibuprofen and using heating pads, but
nothing helped, and by the next morning, Ally was in agony. I had no appetite
and just hid in my room in pain, she says. My mom came home from work and by
then, I was crying in pain and knew something wasn't quite right.
We decided I'd take a pregnancy test just to be sure, and it
came back negative. As soon as I laid down and my mom walked out, I started
screaming at the top of my lungs and my dad came rushing upstairs to see what
was wrong. The cramp passed, and they left my room. A few minutes later, their
eye was screaming in pain. Another excruciating cramp soon followed, and they
knew something was seriously wrong.
It was the middle of the night, and Ally, who lives in Ohio,
USA, was quickly driven to hospital. That ER was very quiet until I walked in
and I'm sure I scared everyone else who was there waiting to be taken back, she
explains. I sat in the corner away from everyone else screaming as my mom
walked through the doors after parking and they immediately took me back, ahead
of everyone else as I obviously had something serious going on. At this point,
I had symptoms of labor but we had told them I took a pregnancy test and
it came back negative, and I obviously didn't look pregnant
so there was just no way I was pregnant. The nurses thought it may have been
kidney stones and an examination of her abdomen found Ally had a hard lump on one
side of her stomach. As my hospital bed was wheeled into the ultrasound room,
another cramp hit and the poor ultrasound technician looked so concerned as I
laid there screaming in pain.
After the cramp was over, she started the ultrasound. She of
course is not allowed to say anything to me about what she's seeing. The doctor
is the only person who can tell me what they found.
So as she's doing the ultrasound, suddenly her jaw drops and
she asked, are you pregnant? And I of course replied with no. She continued the
ultrasound and her facial expression looked very concerned and just astounded.
You could tell something was up and that she had found
something. In my head, I was thinking the worst as I laid there watching her do
the ultrasound. The mass we felt on my abdomen was not good. I was gonna pass
away. It wasn't what was thought, but Ally wouldn't find that out until the
doctor came back briefed with the results of the ultrasound.
As all these doctors and nurses filled my room, I was
preparing myself for the worst news possible, that I was not gonna make it. There
were so many doctors and nurses in my room all with a sense of urgency that I
knew whatever was happening to me was very serious. Then the doctor said these
words to me, have you ever been pregnant before? I of course said no very
confused.
He said, well, it looks like you're about 38 weeks pregnant
and 10 centimetres dilated. You are in full blown labor and we need to get you
upstairs to labor and delivery now. I went into shock. I was not ready to have
a baby.
I couldn't have a baby. My face went white and I started
crying and screaming. I was terrified. Despite not having any prenatal care,
Ally was told her baby looked completely fine, but she, on the other hand, was
not. Her blood pressure was worryingly high and doctors feared she was on the
verge of having a stroke. Ally was given magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures,
and told if she had waited any longer to come to hospital, she could have
passed away.
Ally had preclampsia and her baby was breech, so she was
rushed in for an emergency C-section. Even while lying on the operating table,
with her mum by her side, Ally could not believe she was about to give birth. My
body was shaking a bit as I laid there from them pulling and cutting me open. They
told me it was time to remove the baby and that I'd feel some pressure.
As I waited for them to tell me the baby was out, it felt
like forever. Then I heard, time of birth, 3 colon 31 am and my mum and I
looked at each other and were just saying, cry. Please cry.
Please start crying little baby. So we knew the baby was
okay and healthy. He finally started crying and so did we. That's when it
finally hit me that I was actually in labor and I had just given birth. The
baby was a little boy, and the first boy to be born in their family in 43
years. In the hours and days that followed, Ally's friends and family flocked
to the hospital to meet baby Oliver. She was discharged on Boxing Day, but
understandably had nothing prepared for a baby when she got home.
Everyone was so generous with sending gifts to help me out
since I had literally nothing for him and needed to get so much baby gear and
clothes right away. Now, adjusting to being a new mom was a little different. I
was so happy to have my son, but was overwhelmed at the same time with learning
how to take care of a newborn and all the decisions that come with it.
Ally had been thrown right in the deep end, and it took time
for her to get used to her new reality. I had really bad postpartum depression
and also went back to school that next semester, just four to five weeks after
I had my son, so I was doing a lot while also trying to adjust to being a new
mom.
Even though I wasn't expecting to have a baby any time soon,
I was so happy to have him. I'm truly lucky.
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