Any mom would confirm that pregnancy isn’t an easy journey. Morning sickness, nausea, weight gain, swollen feet and hands aside, there is a lot more going on in your bodies before you give birth to your bundle of joy. These are just few things, for you can never can know what’ll happen in your pregnancy.
There are moms who can narrate stories of how they knew it was a girl, boy or twins and their different emotional and psychological effects. But then there are some that are bizarre, strange and even sad.
Preggers With A Parasitic Twin
Similar to a host and a parasitic setup, this is when you are pregnant with identical twins but something goes wrong when the egg splits. From giving birth Siamese twins (conjoined twins) to the fetus being absorbed by the other twin, parasitic twin syndrome is real.
There have been instances reported from all around the world of babies born pregnant. While physically this is impossible, it is just that the fetus that was absorbed by the other surviving twin had become a part of his/her body, sometimes giving it a similar appearance as that of being pregnant. In most cases, the fetus in fetu gets absorbed but if suspected, surgery is done to remove the ‘remains of the other twin’ from the baby.
The ‘Cryptic’ Pregnancy
Uncertain of whether you are pregnant or not is apparently not that rare. Infact, they are estimated to occur one in every 2500 cases. Most of these women do not have a clue mainly because their home pregnancy tests came back negative or they didn’t feel any of the so-called pregnancy symptoms. Bleeding is common and the worse, the weight gain is often blamed on too much eating, or holiday weight.
Take the story of Nadia who woke up in middle of the night with severe stomach cramps and like a normal human being, she just thought that using the washroom would lessen the pain. It was not long that she knew that she was in labor. The worse thing, her boyfriend, who was sleeping in another room, did not have any clue and would not wake up. It was her neighbors who called the police after hearing her screams. Nadia gave birth to a healthy 7-pound baby, Poppy. She tried waking up her boyfriend, but apparently, it was only the second time, when she dragged him out of his sleep, that he actually realized what had happened.
Scary isn’t it?
Pregnant? It’s All In Your Mind!
Most women mistake their fatigue and nausea with pregnancy symptoms and then there is the lady days that confirms them otherwise. But hold your breath, for phantom pregnancy is real. Even if rare, the symptoms are very much pregnancy like. Women with pseudo-pregnancy stop their menses, have distended abdomens, engorged breasts, etc., basically all the things that pregnant women actually go through. They even go through contractions, only to find that they don’t have a baby in their womb.
An entirely unrelated physical and mental health condition is to be blamed. Furthermore, ovarian cancer and severe depression often leads to women experiencing pregnancy. Sadly, this is often triggered by a trauma and it becomes very difficult for the mother to accept that she is not pregnant at all.
Pregnant But With An Unfertilized Embryo
This happens when an unfertilized embryo latches itself in the uterus. Being pregnant with an unfertilized embryo would still spike your hormones, giving a positive result in home-pregnancy kits. The placenta would begin to develop and early on there would be pregnancy symptoms of nausea and fatigue, and sore breasts. But after some time, the placenta would pass. It’s important to understand that blighted ovum is similar to miscarriage.
Molar Pregnancy, Where The Fetus Doesn’t Develop
Although a rare condition, a molar pregnancy occurs when something goes wrong with the fetus during the early stages of fertilization. So, if you are bleeding which is dark and irregular, have severe morning sickness, have increased tummy growth and pain, its best to consult a doctor to rule out molar pregnancies.
What is important is to understand that both, the blighted ovum and molar pregnancy are stressful as the mother undergoes a miscarriage and may have to terminate their pregnancy. It’s always best to give yourself some time to grief and consult the doctor for future complications.
Pregnant Man
Thomas Beatie made headlines when he was the first ‘pregnant man,’ and here you were thinking how to get the father of the child more involved in your pregnancy! Beatie was born a girl, but started treatment for sex change at 23 to become a man. He kept his female parts and in 2008, through artificial insemination, he became pregnant.
There are others like Henrý Steinn who discovered that he was pregnant just months before he was supposed to undergo a hormone therapy for sex change to be a man. He gave birth to a girl. Similarly, Kaydan Coleman was in a shock when he found that he was pregnant as he was passing off his weight gain as being overweight.
Getting Pregnant While Pregnant
Ooh yes, that can happen too! Known as the superfetation, this occurs when a second egg released by the pregnant woman gets fertilized again. Though it is different from superfecundation – when two eggs gets released during the same cycle and which are fertilized at separate times. (which is also known as twins from different fathers) Take the story of Susie Chong, who came to know that she was pregnant with her second pregnancy when she was already pregnant for seven weeks.
All these bizarre conditions are rare. Some of these conditions are treatable and the babies who are born are healthy, but some can be traumatic for both the mother and the family. What is important is to understand that in all of these cases, it is the mother who experiences a different kind of pregnancy, and therefore, becomes important to support her no matter what.
