I partied in Vegas days before giving birth at 40 – I judged women who didn't know they were pregnant until I was one
Yesterday at 05:04 AM
SITTING in a limo in Las Vegas, Carrie Renee felt incredible.
What better way to celebrate her 40th birthday than sipping champagne as the sights of Sin City flew by?
But the production worker had no idea that something else was fizzing away.
She was in fact nine months pregnant, just days away from giving birth to a baby she had no clue she was expecting and was about to become a mum for the third time.
Baby or no baby, turning forty in July 2021 was a big deal for Carrie.
"I used to tell friends that I didn't hit my stride until I hit 35," she says.
"I had my two beautiful children young, Candace when I was 21 and Thomas at 23.
"Both pregnancies were hard. With Candace I was constantly sick and struggled with fatigue. I had endless food cravings and ballooned from eight to 14 stone.
"With Thomas I didn't gain as much weight but had a big bump, as well as awful heartburn and nausea."
After her marriage ended when she was 23, Carrie raised her kids as a single mum.
When the children became teenagers and more independent, she felt she could also spread her wings a little.
"I was able to go to the movies and dinner with friends, without the guilt that I wasn't with the children constantly," she explains.
In 2018 she started chatting online with Chris, a fun, kind man she'd worked with years before.
They had their first date in October and soon fell in love.
"I felt like we definitely had a future together," she says.
"But I made it clear that I was done having children. I loved my two but had no intention of having another."
Even if they had wanted to it didn’t seem likely.
With PCOS and being in her late thirties, Carrie thought the odds of getting pregnant were tiny.
"It wasn't an issue for Chris," she says.
"He didn't have any children and he was fine with that. Still, I took the contraceptive pill, just in case."
Fast forward to July 2021 and it was Chris's idea to take a five-day Vegas trip for Carrie's 40th.
"He'd never been before, and I loved it. It seemed like the perfect place to begin this new decade of my life," she says.
"Chris booked a limousine to collect us from the airport, and it was the start of the most amazing trip.
"Despite the fact it's boiling in Vegas in July we made the most of every minute. We ate in amazing restaurants, saw all the sights and walked for hours."
The journey home was a little stressful. A cancelled flight meant they had to run through the airport to catch a connecting flight.
"A few weeks before I'd been canoeing, hauling my boat out of the river. So even an insane terminal run didn't have me out of breath," she says.
But three days after getting home Carrie woke up feeling strange.
"Chris and I weren't living together, but I'd spent the night at his house," says Carrie from Jefferson City, Missouri.
"We had plans to go to the movies and grab some lunch.
"But I woke up totally exhausted.
"An energy drink didn't help and when I tried to eat some clam chowder, one of my favourites, it didn't taste right."
I was in agony. I managed to call the kids to tell them what was happening, and Chris drove me to hospital.
Carrie Renee
Carrie decided to have a nap, and that's when things took a turn.
"Suddenly I felt this dull pain in my right side. I'd had kidney infections before, and they're horrible, so my heart sank," Carrie says.
"I told Chris that I'd take some ibuprofen and go to the doctors the following day. But the pills didn't help and when I went to the toilet, I saw blood.'
"I was panicking, did this mean I had a kidney stone? With the pain increasing every second.
"I was in agony. I managed to call the kids to tell them what was happening, and Chris drove me to hospital.
"The eight minute journey was agony. By the time we arrived I couldn't speak, it felt like I was being shredded from the inside."
The second the doctor pressed her stomach, Carrie let out a scream.
"I was so scared and had never felt anything like it," she says.
"Then they wheeled in an ultrasound machine and through my agony I heard the words, 'Wait, there's a heartbeat.'"
‘Oh my god!’
It's a moment that will be burned in Carrie's memory forever.
"I asked what they meant by a heartbeat before anyone had time to answer.”
As she was wheeled into delivery, Carrie's mind raced as she heard doctors discuss her 'crowning.'
Eventually Chris took her hand and told her they were having a baby.
"I thought 'this can't be right, my baby is 17'," she says.
"Chris was unbelievably calm and told me that we'd figure it out, he just wanted to focus on making sure we were both OK."
Just minutes after the trolley flew into the delivery room Carrie looked down to see a baby girl lying on her stomach.
"It's impossible to describe the shock," she says.
"There was a baby – my baby – doing skin-to-skin just like Candace and Thomas had done.
"All I kept saying was 'Oh my god, oh my god.'"
After her daughter was checked, cleaned and swaddled she was placed in Carrie's arms.
"I felt this wave of awe. She was beautiful," Carrie says.
What is a cryptic pregnancy?
What is a “cryptic pregnancy”?
By medical definition, a cryptic pregnancy is one that is failed to be detected by medical testing.
There may be signs there, but essentially a cryptic pregnancy is one where these signs are not obvious to the woman, or she denies they are there.
A pregnancy test may come back negative even after the woman has missed her period for a number of medical reasons.
If she does get an ultrasound despite a negative pregnancy test, it's possible a pregnancy won't show up in the first trimester because of problems such as the way the uterus is shaped, or simply because the medic doesn’t spend time looking for it if they don’t believe it’s there.
Most people notice symptoms of pregnancy such as tender and swollen breasts, mood swings, fatigue, and nausea early on in their pregnancy.
But this could be dismissed by the woman as being caused by something else, such as a condition or diet.
There are also cases where someone become pregnant in their early teens before they understand the symptoms of pregnancy.
Cryptic pregnancies aren't common, but they're not unheard of, either. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women might not be aware of their pregnancies in up 1 in 475 cases, according to a British Medical Journal report.
Some women are more likely to have a cryptic pregnancy than others because they believe it is not possible for them to have a child.
It includes those with PCOS, who may have been told it will be difficult for them to have a child, and women on birth control pills, because the woman thinks the pill will protect her entirely from conceiving.
Women with low body fat may also fail to detect they are pregnant if their periods are irregular or absent as a result of being so slim.
Babies born from a cryptic pregnancy tend to be underweight, and the lack of prenatal care may affect their development.
But what about the bump?
A women may have a smaller bump – one she and others around her deem insignificant – for a number of reasons.
TikTok sensation NHS surgeon Dr Karan Rajan explained: “Most women have an anteverted uterus, [meaning] it’s slightly tilted forwards.
“But one in five have a backwards tilt towards the spine.”
The GP explained that for some women, their uterus may remain tiled backwards for the duration of their pregnancy.
“This ‘backwards growth’ could hide any bump,” he stated.
Other factors that could result in an invisible pregnancy could be “previous surgery, endometriosis and other gynaecological conditions [that] could scar the utroseacral ligament”.
“These are basically biological anchors which keep the uterus fixed to the spine and inside the pelvic cavities,” Dr Rajan explained.
“If these are stiff because of scarring, these ligaments can literally hold the uterus back and stop it from protruding too far out.”
People who are taller also have more of a chance of not displaying a noticeable bump when they’re expecting, the NHS surgeon went on.
“If you’re taller, you’ll have a longer torso so there’ll be more space for the uterus to develop upwards rather than just outwards,” he said, possibly giving the appearance of a small bump.
And if you have particularly “well developed” abs, this may make your uterus “develop closer to your core rather than protruding out”.
"Despite the fact I'd eaten sushi, had the odd alcoholic drink and exercised for hours – all things I wouldn't have done if I'd known I was pregnant – she was healthy and perfect.
"I was so thankful."
Carrie couldn’t believe she’d carried the baby for months without realising.
"How was it possible that I hadn't developed any bump, or had any symptoms at all?" she says.
"No heartburn or nausea, no cravings or exhaustion.
"I'd put on maybe eight pounds in the previous year, but as a forty-year-old woman that was hardly unusual. I was still a size ten when I'd arrived at hospital."
Breaking the news
Doctors said that because Carrie's uterus had tilted upwards, her baby had grown into her body, rather than out which helped explain the lack of a bump.
"But it was just wild to think that I'd been living it up in Las Vegas just a few days before, with no idea that she was on her way," she says.
Family and friends were just as shocked.
"Calling my kids to tell them was surreal," she says.
"They were blown away that mum had gone to hospital for a kidney infection, and they ended up with a baby sister."
But Carrie remembered how she'd heard stories of surprise births in the past and had scoffed.
"At the time it seemed ridiculous that a woman could be pregnant for nine months and have no idea," she says.
"Now it had happened to me."
A ‘learning curve’
As she cradled her daughter, who they decided to call Julia, Carrie and Chris' thoughts turned to more practical matters.
"We didn't have a cot or nappies, baby clothes or a car seat, and because this was during Covid Chris couldn't leave the hospital to shop," Carrie explains.
"Thankfully our friends and family pulled together. When I was discharged three days later, they'd organised everything we needed. It was amazing."
Some parts of motherhood came right back to Carrie, like the nappy changes and night feeds. Others were more of a learning curve.
"Things had changed a lot since Candace and Thomas were young," she admits.
"I swore that Julia wouldn't have screentime, as her siblings hadn't. But she ended up with her own iPad."
Three and a half years later, as she looks at her beautiful, energetic daughter, Carrie still thinks about that mad hospital dash in amazement.
"Julia is such an incredible gift, Chris and I can't imagine life without her," she says.
"But even now, at 43, I get scared that I might be pregnant again.
"If my period is even one day late, or I see any spotting, I panic. One secret baby is more than enough."
