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Claire Reid
A woman says she had absolutely no idea she was pregnant until her waters broke just days after her partner said he 'wished' they had a baby. I'm not going to lie, this has unlocked a new fear for me.
Shelby Bentley, 21, initially dismissed her labour pains as appendicitis and put off going to the hospital for a whopping 16 hours.
The assistant nurse says that even when her waters broke she thought she had wet herself and simply showered and went for a lie down as she ‘felt weird’.
But the pains continued and poor Shelby spent the night ‘pacing around’ her bedroom until 5am the following morning when she asked her mum to take her to hospital.
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Shelby went to Sparrow Ionia Hospital in Ionia, Michigan, US, convinced she had appendicitis after seeing other patients suffering with the condition at work.
However, a urine sample and ultrasound revealed the shocking truth - she was 34-weeks pregnant and experiencing pre-eclampsia.
Shelby was then whisked off for an emergency caesarean section and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, named Kayden Reitz, who is now one year old.
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She said: "Before I had felt my water break, I didn't realise I was pregnant at all.
"[When my water broke] I thought, 'that's weird', and I thought I'd just peed myself."
Somewhat bizarrely just two days before she gave birth, Shelby’s fiancé Jacob Reitz had said he ‘wished’ the couple had a baby - seems like Jacob might have an incredibly fast acting fairy godmother.
Shelby said: "It was a nice surprise. A couple of days before Jacob said, 'I wish we could have a baby boy', and I was like, 'oh God'.
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"Then a couple of days later, there he was. It's like he predicted it. It's crazy."
She continued: "I was in pain for 16 hours before I went to the hospital. I thought it would go away.
"I thought I had appendicitis because I work in healthcare, so I'm familiar with some of these things. I thought my appendix was going to explode. I thought I was going to die.
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"I went to the hospital and they asked if I thought I was pregnant, and I said, 'no way'. I had my period and everything. Everything was really normal.
"Right before I had him, I noticed I'd gained some pounds, but now I realise I was pregnant.
"I was doing loads of stuff I wasn't supposed to, like lifting, and doing everything I do normally."
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The now-mum-of-one added: "The doctor came in and said, 'you're about to have a baby right now.' I said, 'are you serious?'
"I was so shocked. I was crying the whole time before they took me to the C-section. It was so stressful."
Despite the stressful start to motherhood, Shelby says she wouldn’t change a thing.
“When I held him, I was just so shocked, because he was only five pounds and five ounces - he was so small,” she said. "I was like, 'wow, you are so cute and so little'.
"I would not change it for anything. I'm so glad we have our little surprise baby."