Surprise! Woman Gives Birth, Had No Clue She Was Pregnant
I’ve often wondered how someone could carry a child for nine months and yet have no idea they’re pregnant ’til surprise! they go into labor and give birth. It’s the stuff of trashy TV and tabloids or so it would seem. But that’s not the case with Vancouverite Rachel Suttie, 28, who gave birth while in the midst of a vigorous hike with her dad. The crazy part? Despite already being a mom, Suttie had no idea she was pregnant!
Before you go accusing her of being a total dork, know this: Suttie had a miscarriage back in January when she was just six weeks into her pregnancy. According to the Vancouver Sun, she visited her doctor at the time, who performed an internal exam and told her she’d had a “clean miscarriage.” And so Suttie, who had no follow-up ultrasound, had know way of knowing that she had actually been pregnant with twins and that one of them was still alive and growing inside of her.
Following the miscarriage, Suttie and her dad, Steve, began training together for the West Coast Trail in Vancouver Island (the two of them are avid hikers). She tells the Sun that she was eating well and drinking lots of water as part of her training. She noticed some slight weight gain but figured it was all related to the miscarriage. And though she had heart burn and felt the need to pee all the time, she thought they were just side effects of some medications she was taking. As for the baby kicking? “I thought it was all in my head,” she told the Sun.
Suttie broke up with her boyfriend, the baby’s father, right after the miscarriage and she says there was no reason to think she was pregnant from having further sex.
On August 29, Suttie and her dad headed out on the rigorous 75-kilometer hiking trail. She says she felt weak but she pushed herself for two whole days until she took a fall and twisted her right ankle (it turned purple). The fall caused her to go into labor though she had no idea at the time that it was actual labor! As Suttie explains, “I am going up rickety ladders, stopping and holding on to have a contraction. I thought it was the worst period of my life.”
Her pain got increasingly worse and, on the night of September 1 two days into labor Suttie told her dad she was quitting and would not be completing the hike. The next morning he called Parks Canada to request an emergency rescue. That night, at 8:12 p.m., Suttie gave birth via c-section to a healthy baby girl weighing seven pounds, four ounces. She named her Fern. (Suttie is also mom to a six-year-old girl, Rowan.)
