20 year old Sophie Aldridge gave birth to her son in November 2013 and claims she didn't know she was pregnant until the day she gave birth because she didn't have a baby bump. When no one believed her, Sophie produced pictures she took during her pregnancy...and said if anyone had told her then that she was pregnant, she never would have believed it.
‘I know it might sound stupid to some people, but I had no idea I was pregnant. To give birth suddenly and without warning as I did was absolutely terrifying. I didn’t have any symptoms. I didn’t get morning sickness. I was wearing my usual size ten clothes. I had regular periods throughout the pregnancy, and I didn’t have any cravings.’ She tells Daily Mail
Pic on the left is Sophie in the first month of her pregnant. Center pic is Sophie at 4months and right pic is Sophie at five months. So hard to believe but continue to read her story...
From UK Daily Mail...
Left: Sophie at six months and right Sophie at seven months
As for Sophie not knowing she was pregnant, this is something that sparks defensiveness. Which is understandable, perhaps, when you consider that since her story appeared in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, she has been labelled a fantasist, a liar and even a benefits scrounger.
Sophie, a support worker for adults with autism, retorts:
‘People are saying I’m doing it for attention, and that Thomas is a burden to the taxpayer. But I was working full-time before my pregnancy, and I’m going back to work.
‘I really didn’t have a clue I was expecting. I’m not stupid. If I had missed a period or had had any sign at all, I would have gone straight to the doctor to have it checked out.’
Incredible as it seems, Sophie insists that her menstrual cycle was regular for the entire nine months - though experts question whether or not this is physically possible.
‘You can’t have periods during a pregnancy. Pregnancy hormones can cause regular bleeding during the first trimester, which can be mistaken for periods,’ says independent midwife Nikki Khan.
And light bleeding - spotting - can occur throughout the pregnancy.
'But there is normally a cause for this, such as cervical erosion or a low lying placenta, and it should always be checked out.’
So can anyone really carry a baby to full term and not have a clue about it?
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| Sophie pictured right at 8 months pregnant |
A widely cited study published in the British Medical Journal in 2002 found that up to one in 600 mothers-to-be don’t realise they are pregnant until they give birth, or just before.
However, a large-scale Serbian study in 2010 put the number at as few as one in every 7,225 pregnancies.
Even Sophie herself admits: ‘No doctors have been able to explain it. They are baffled. To be honest, it’s all been a bit of a blur.’
Four months on, she hasn’t quite reconciled herself with her sudden and unexpected transition to motherhood. Still sleep deprived, her sentences are half-finished, her hot drinks half-drunk, and her attention distracted by the baby monitor at her side.
Strange to think that little over a year ago, Sophie was relishing the myriad freedoms of youth, with no plans to have children until she was ‘at least 30’.
In addition to a sleek physique, Sophie’s pictures capture this carefree spirit. At three months, she wears a pair of dungarees that flash her tiny 26-inch waist.
At five months, she’s in a skin-tight boob tube most non-pregnant women would struggle to get over their knees. At six months, she’s at a friend’s wedding, quaffing champagne.
Throughout, she was living - as she still does - with her parents in their spacious three-bedroom end-of-terrace in Dover, Kent, and far too preoccupied with her own life to entertain the thought of nurturing someone else’s.
Sophie is sketchy as to the father’s identity. When pushed, she admits he works at a local hotel, is two years her senior and went to her school.
They had been dating for around six weeks when she fell pregnant last February.
‘Normally, I would use contraception but you make mistakes when you’re young,’ she says.
She wasn’t taking the Pill, so when asked if the couple were using condoms; Sophie said
‘I was … most of the time. There was probably a one-off. I was stupid. I’ve been brought up to know what’s right and wrong - but people make mistakes. It’s just one of those things.’
They separated in May, for reasons which Sophie refuses to discuss. ‘There was no connection and it wasn’t working out,’ is all that she is prepared to say on the matter.
In the meantime, Sophie continued burning the candle at both ends - often juggling 12-hour days with her hectic social life.
With this, unfortunately, came drinking and smoking - both potentially damaging to an unborn child.
‘Of course I wish I hadn’t now,’ she says. ‘And, of course, I would never have done so had I known I was pregnant.
At an all-day festival in July, I got through a crate - that’s 24 bottles - of beer. I’d been smoking all day every day. I’d done none of the things pregnant women are supposed to do. ‘Of course, the first thing I worried when I found out I was in labour was that there would be something wrong with my baby.’
With good reason, given that foetal alcohol syndrome - damage to the feotus caused by excessive alcohol consumption - is one of the most prevalent intellectual disabilities in the Western World.
Miraculously, though, doctors say Thomas was not affected.
One theory put forward by sceptics is that Sophie was in deep denial over her pregnancy - and simply refused to face up to the truth.
She insists this wasn’t the case. It was just that she didn’t experience any of the normal signs of pregnancy.
‘My breasts didn’t change size, my periods remained regular, and I didn’t put on any weight. If I had had any suspicions, the first thing I would have done is to have got checked.’
Given that this baby was so obviously unplanned, would she have considered terminating the pregnancy had she had the opportunity? Again, she says no, saying simply: ‘I don’t brush off my responsibilities.’
When she started getting sporadic cramps at 3 am on November 13, she put them down to a stomach bug.
‘I couldn’t sleep and kept going back to the toilet,’ she says. ‘I thought maybe it was something I ate. Next day, I had to call in sick.’
Her mum, Sylvia, a 48-year-old carer, suggested she take some paracetamol and have a bath. It didn’t help.
At 6pm, Sylvia called the out-of-hours doctor service, 111. They told her to go to the chemist, where she picked up some Imodium. It didn’t work.
‘The cramps became more regular and got worse,’ says Sophie. ‘I was rolling around in pain.’
In despair, Sylvia took her daughter to Buckland Hospital in Dover at 10pm to see the on-call doctor.
‘He prodded my stomach and asked if I could be pregnant,’ says Sophie. ‘I said no. He said I had a stomach bug, gave me some painkillers and sent me home at 10.30 pm.’
By midnight, her pain was so bad that her mother called for an ambulance. The paramedics, who examined her stomach, drove her to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent. Her dad Derek, a 47-year-old cleaner, followed behind in his car.
On the journey, Sophie’s waters broke and she had an all-consuming urge to empty her bowels.
That’s when her mother clicked. ‘I realised for the first time she must be pregnant,’ she says. ‘I was shocked, and my first thought was whether the baby was going to be born alive.’
The ambulance activated its sirens and speeded up to 90 mph. Sophie was rushed into Accident and Emergency - there was no time to go to the maternity ward - and gave birth 15 minutes later in an empty cubicle in the department.
‘Mum was telling me to push and Dad was squeezing my hand,’ she says. ‘Everything happened so quickly. I was panicked and confused.’
Midwives delivered her son at 1.35am and placed him on her chest.
‘I felt a bond straight away. As I looked into his eyes, I felt an overwhelming rush of love.
‘As terrified as I was by the speed of events, the moment I saw him I just couldn’t imagine my life without him.’
The next morning, her brother Andrew, 26, phoned Thomas’s dad.
‘He was as shocked as I was,’ reports Sophie. ‘He didn’t say sorry. He knew we were both to blame.
‘He came to see us in hospital. He’d bought vests and a teddy.’
Her boss - an understanding woman by the sounds of it - also visited them. ‘I’d only started my new job four weeks earlier, but she said I could take as much time off as I needed.’
By the time Sophie left hospital two days later, friends and family had clubbed together to buy her a cot, buggy, baby clothes and a Moses basket: ‘Until then, I didn’t have so much as a nappy to my name,’ she says.
Thomas was given his own room and the family attempted to restore a semblance of normality.
Source: UK Daily Mail
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