Pregnancy is such a significant development in a woman’s body that it’s hard to imagine a woman not realizing that she is pregnant until a few months before labour.
And yet it does happen.
According to a Mama Mia report, one in 450 pregnant women finds out they are pregnant after 20 weeks. Meanwhile, one in 2,500 won’t realize they’re carrying another human being until they are already in labour.
Image source: iStock
21-year-old Caitlin Ritter was one of these women.
In a Daily Telegraph report, she recalled behaving like a normal university student during that time in her life.
“I was going out most weekends and getting drunk with my friends, sleeping my way through class and having a few one-night stands,” she said.
Not getting her period regularly was a common occurrence for Caitlyn, so when she did get pregnant and didn’t get her period, she didn’t think much of it.
Although she did gain weight, it was only a few kilos. In fact, the week before she was to give birth, she was at the beach wearing a bikini and she had a flat stomach.
Image source: iStock
Looking back, the only curious things she experienced were being more tired than usual, peeing more frequently, and experiencing some heartburn.
But then she was finally able to connect the dots during her seventh month when she was lying down and she noticed that her belly was moving.
“When I looked down at my belly, I saw an external movement—an arm or a leg—push out into my belly like the scene from the movie Alien.
“That’s when I realised I was pregnant, but it wasn’t until I made the necessary appointments and I heard the baby’s heartbeat that it really hit home.”
The news shocked Caitlin, and her first impulse was to contact her child’s potential father.
He wanted nothing to do with the child.
Caitlin Ritter discovered she was pregnant at seven months with her son Caden. | Image source: Tara Croser / Daily Telegraph
At first, Caitlin played with the idea of giving up her child for adoption, but in the end, decided to keep her baby and make her circumstances work.
Her son, whom she named Caden, was born in the middle of the university semester, but that didn’t stop her from getting her degree.
Now she can’t even imagine life without her son.
“Every morning I’m up at 4:30am to get him ready so I can drop him off at childcare for 6:30am and then travel another hour to get to work each day—but Caden and I make a great team and I can’t imagine life without him.”
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