Wash. Woman Unexpectedly Has Baby Boy By Associated Press document.write(getElapsed("20061102T041818Z")); UPDATED 8 HOURS 5 MINUTES AGO
BELLEVUE, Wash. - Amanda Brisendine attributed the 30 pounds she gained in the past year to an abandoned smoking habit and rich food. So when she went to the hospital with sharp stomach pain, she wasn't expecting to leave with a newborn son.
"I don't know how I didn't know. I just didn't know," Brisendine said Tuesday from her bed at Overlake Medical Center's Birthing Center, where she delivered Alexander Joseph Britt by Caesarean section.
Doctors agree her case is not rare.
George Macones, chairman of the OB/GYN department at Washington University in St. Louis, said he's seen about a dozen cases in his nearly 20-year career.
The pregnancy isn't always obvious when a woman is overweight, or a woman will have spotting or bleeding during the pregnancy and mistake it for menstruation, said Macones, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.
The 26-year-old Renton woman went to Group Health Cooperative's Eastside campus last Saturday after experiencing several days of abdominal pain so intense that she called in sick from work.
Doctors examined her and performed a pregnancy test that showed positive _ she was nine months pregnant.
"I was so shocked. I was nauseous," said Brisendine, whose boyfriend Jason Britt didn't believe her at first.
"I thought she was lying," said Britt, 33.
Already mother to a 14-month-old daughter, Melodies, Brisendine said she didn't experience typical pregnancy symptoms, like a missed menstruation, morning sickness, fatigue or food cravings. "Everything was normal as far as I knew," she said.
Ultrasounds showed low amniotic fluid in the placenta and the baby wasn't moving properly, Brisendine's doctor, Danica Bloomquist, said.
"From our assessment, the baby wasn't doing well in utero," Bloomquist said. "He needed to come out."
After an emergency C-section Sunday, Brisendine delivered 7-pound, 5-ounce Alexander.
"We're in for a really, really big adventure," Brisendine said.
I'm always amazed when I hear stories like this...like how can you NOT know?
Then again I had a friend that was pregnant for about 4 months before finally figuring out that the little pooch she was developing the infront was probably not as a result of eating pizza late at night..
my friends cousin had the same thing happen to her. she is overweight and a not the brightest bulb, but still, i was shocked. she called my friend while we were roomates and asked us to take her to the hospital because she thought she might have appendisitus(sp?) or something like that. so we are in the waiting room to find out what is wrong with her and her doctor comes out and asks us if we would be with her for the delivery because there wouldn't be time to get anyone else to the hospital. we looked at each other and laughed and thought the doctor had the wrong people, but sure enough we walked in and 45 minutes later she had a baby. it was the strangest thing that ever happened to me.
i know you can still get your period while preg/etc but i still think a lot of these women who have "surprise" babies are living in a town called denial!
