Yess Figueroa found out her life was about to change irrevocably when she went to hospital with what she thought were stomach cramps.
The new mum, from Mexico, had no idea she having a baby until 15 hours before her daughter was born.
Yess says she didn’t have a noticeable baby bump and has always had irregular periods.
Experiencing intense also cramps isn’t unusual for Yess, but on the day she gave birth, she says the pain felt unlike it had before.
‘The difference this time was that I had been experiencing cramps for two days and my period hadn’t arrived,’ she said.
‘I started to worry. By the third day, the pain was intense. It was early morning, around 4 a.m. when I got up and told my parents, “I can’t take it anymore”.’
Her parents rushed her to A&E where medics did some tests. When the social media influencer told the doctors where her pain was, one medical professional decided to give her an ultrasound scan.
‘My belly wasn’t big or anything, so when the doctor placed the device on me, she went silent and just stared. She said, “Wait here, I’m going to get another doctor”.
‘Sure enough, two doctors came, and they did the same thing, just staring at the screen. Then they said, “Let’s get another doctor to be sure.”
Yess says there were soon around eight doctors in the ‘small’ emergency room examining her.
She was understandably worried about what was going on until one medic broke the news.
“They said: ‘You’re pregnant, and you’re very pregnant, your baby is ready to come.’
Yess says the news she was about to become a parent was ‘a huge shock’, in fact, she was stunned. ‘It’s one thing for them to say, “You’re pregnant”; you process it, you have nine months to get used to it.’
The instant mum-to-be said her fears subsided when she heard her baby’s heart beating for the first time.
‘I was scared, honestly but hearing those strong heartbeats was what kept me calm.
Yess was taken by ambulance to a local maternity unit, where she gave birth to her daughter Renata, who made her first unexpected appearance just 15 hours earlier.
The mum had what is called a cryptic, or stealth, pregnancy.
It happens when the person doesn’t have pregnancy symptoms or mistakes the symptoms for something else.
Only about one in 2,500 pregnancies go unnoticed until delivery.
I had no idea I was pregnant until I went into labour on the loo in Nando’s
Destiny Stephens-Coull, from Laindon, Essex, showed up for a shift at her Nandos job in April 2022, and felt cramps like her period starting – despite the fact she wasn’t due on for two more weeks.
She ended up bleeding heavily in the loo for over an hour, before colleagues found her and she was rushed to nearby Basildon Hospital.
‘The toilets were like a murder scene – there was blood everywhere,’ said Destiny.
‘We went to A&E with me bleeding through my work uniform. I was stood in the corner with a puddle of blood at my feet.
‘I passed out from the blood loss and woke up to nurses around me.’
After losing four litres of blood and having several transfusions, a bewildered Destiny was told she was six months pregnant, and needed an emergency C-section under general anaesthetic.
‘I freaked out so much,’ she recalled.
‘I’d been clubbing and drinking, I danced a lot, I had a flat stomach. I thought there was absolutely no way.’
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