There have been quite a few stories before of moms giving birth without even knowing they were pregnant, but what happened to Emmalouise Leggate stands out. That's because the 19-year-old went to bed with a flat stomach and the next morning woke up to find she had a pretty impressive baby bump. Within 45 minutes, Emmalouise gave birth to a baby girl.
The Scottish teen had been on the pill and never experienced morning sickness or strange cravings. She also never felt her baby kick and just assumed that her missed periods were a side effect of her birth control. So when she woke up with a large tummy, she immediately called her mom, who called her mom, Emmalouise's grandmother, Louise, who took Emmalouise to the hospital. Louise parked the car and ran for help, leaving her granddaughter in the car. However, by the time she found a nurse and got back to the vehicle, Emmalouise had already given birth.
It all happened in July but this week, Emmalouise shared her story, explaining:
"The bump popped out literally out of the blue that one morning. I had woken up and you could tell it was a bump. It was dead high up. My nanna kept saying, 'It's definitely a baby but I don’t think you're ready to give birth just now because of how high up you are.' By the time I got in the car the contractions were coming every two minutes and then my water broke. We had just parked up outside the hospital and my nanna was saying, 'Wait five minutes, can you not just wait five minutes?' and I just couldn't"
Emmalouise named her daughter Ciara and doctors immediately did tests on the baby since there were no health records from during the pregnancy. Thankfully, Ciara was given a clean bill of health and weighed in at seven pounds, 12 ounces.
Speaking about the experience, Emmalouise stated, "I was really shocked afterwards. It didn't feel real."
As for how it happened, she said:
"The doctors couldn't explain why I didn’t have a bump. They just told me that she must have been sitting in my lower back and that it is quite common. People tend to find out around their 20-week scan once the baby starts to kick, but Ciara never kicked. I never felt her do it. I never had any morning sickness or cravings either, nothing like that. At the start [of using the pill] I was bleeding a little bit, but then my periods just stopped altogether so I just thought that it was the pill. I had no bump. I had put on a bit of weight, so my mum was suggesting we go out walking and do different things to burn it off because I kept going on about my weight. The weight was across my full body, more in my arms, legs and face than anywhere else. My stomach never grew."
Ciara is Emmalouise's second child with her partner, Sean, and they're describing her as "the best thing that could have happened," but they are going to make sure they don't wind up with any more surprise kids. Emmalouise now takes regular pregnancy tests, just to be sure.
Photo: Facebook/Emmalouise Leggate