The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
New mom gives birth after not knowing she was pregnant
STAMFORD — Surprises — pleasant ones, anyway — often come in the form of a party, a visitor or an unexpected windfall. But a surprise baby?
That’s exactly how Farah Hage-Sleiman and her fiance, Derek Roy, took the news that they were minutes away from becoming parents — the couple had no idea HageSleiman was pregnant.
“It was a complete shock,” Hage-Sleiman said. “I really had no idea I was pregnant.”
Small in stature and size, standing no taller than 5feet, 4 inches, Hage-Sleiman said she and Roy were at the gym early on May 17 when her water broke.
“I was having what I thought were stomach cramps, and then suddenly I felt like I had wet my pants,” she said. Not suspecting Hage-Sleiman had just gone into labor, the couple headed home so she could clean up and rest.
But the cramps continued to worsen, to the point of being unbearable, and within a few hours Hage-Sleiman said she was “screaming bloody murder.”
The couple rushed to the emergency room at Stamford Hospital, where they were informed of their impending parenthood.
“I was like, ‘You’re joking, right?” ’ Hage-Sleiman said.
“It was scary,” she said. “After it sunk in that I’m having a baby, then all these really scary questions and thoughts started popping into my head. Is he healthy? Is he going to be OK? I started replaying the last seven or eight months in my head. What did I eat? What did I do? Did I do anything that could have hurt him?”
And though he was born about four weeks premature, the couple said Lucas Henry Roy is strong and healthy.
Disconnect
In hindsight, Hage-Sleiman said she’d been experiencing symptoms for months: She was gaining weight, she was emotional, her feet were swelling, she was having stomach trouble and her skin was breaking out, but the couple attributed most of what she was feeling to stress.
“I just graduated from law school in May and started a new job; we’re planning a wedding; we just bought a house and a car — I mean, we have a lot of stressful things going on in our lives right now,” she said. “It never occurred to me that any of my symptoms were related. I looked at each one individually.”
Hage-Sleiman said she was taking birth-control medication, so pregnancy was the furthest thing from her mind.
“I explained a lot of what I was feeling away,” she said. “My stomach felt really full or bloated, but I have a lot of food allergies, so it’s not unusual for my stomach to be slightly distended. I did feel movement in my stomach, but I chocked that up to digestive issues or gas. I was emotional and my skin was breaking out, but I figured I was just stressed with all the changes taking place in our lives. And yes, I had gained some weight, but it wasn’t a lot and I gained most of it on my sides, so again, I figured stress.”
Hage-Sleiman saw a series of doctors — a gastroenterologist, a podiatrist, a dermatologist and a therapist — none of whom connected her symptoms or suggested she was pregnant.
“It’s definitely uncommon, but it does happen,” said Dr. Scott Chudnoff, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stamford Hospital. In his 18 years as an obstetrician, Chudnoff said he has seen five or six women deliver full-term babies without knowing they were pregnant.
Chudnoff said there are a few common circumstances in which a woman might not realize early on that she is pregnant.
“If a woman is using contraception or maybe doesn’t have a regular period, she might not think the symptoms she is experiencing are due to pregnancy,” he said. “The same could be said of a woman who is not regularly sexually active.”
‘No prep time’
For those who make it further into their pregnancies without realizing they’re pregnant, Chudnoff said it is not uncommon for them to rationalize or explain away what they are experiencing.
“The most common thing a woman might say is that she thought she was experiencing gas or digestive issues,” he said. “And for women who are heavier, the weight gain might not actually be that noticeable.”
Whether they learned of their pregnancy early on, or in the delivery room, Chudnoff said it is not uncommon for women to view their symptoms as Hage-Sleiman did — taking each one as an isolated problem and treating it accordingly.
Despite the initial shock, the couple said they are “thrilled” to be parents and excited for this new chapter in their lives.
“We always planned on having children,” Roy said. “We just didn’t expect it to happen so soon or so suddenly. But we are so excited. The past few days have been a whirlwind, but it’s also been so awesome.”
Because Lucas was a surprise, the couple said they have scrambled to acquire the equipment used by new families, such as car seats, a stroller and a crib.
“We had no prep time,” Roy said. “We’ve gotten a lot of gifts from our friends and family and co-workers to help us prepare for parenthood. The support we’ve received has been amazing.”