”I had no idea I was pregnant until I gave birth on the kitchen floor”
Jolting upright in bed, I clutched my stomach in agony. It felt like something was tugging on my insides. Groaning, I realised my period was nearly due. My cramps always came the week before like clockwork.
It was the middle of the night in April 2018 and my boyfriend Ben, then 21, was fast asleep beside me. Ben and I had been together for a year and he was great with my daughter Millie, then aged just one. As I tossed and turned in bed, it was impossible to fall back to sleep.
Ben stirred beside me. “What’s the matter?” “I have a stomach ache,” I mumbled, rolling on to my belly. Ben softly rubbed my back, but nothing helped to relieve my cramps.
Four hours later, my alarm went off and I was still wide awake and in pain. Ignoring the cramps, I got out of bed, pulled on my size 10 jeans and got ready to pick up Millie from her dad’s house.
When we got back home, we played all morning, but as I put Millie down for her midday nap, I felt exhausted and nauseous. I climbed into bed and fell asleep.
An hour later, I woke up in excruciating pain. My cramps had never been this bad before. I began to feel feverish and hoped I wasn’t coming down with a stomach bug.
I plodded to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. When I peered down at my knickers, I realised they were soaked in blood, but there was too much for a period.
Panicking, I grabbed my phone and texted my mum, Angie, 56, asking for her help. “I’m bleeding heavily. I don’t know what to do,” I messaged her. I then sent the same text to Ben. Within minutes, Mum called me.
“Mum, this isn’t right,” I groaned, feeling light-headed. “It could be a cyst,” she soothed. “Don’t worry, I’m coming there now.”
While I waited, I cradled my stomach on the toilet before curling up in bed. By the time Mum arrived an hour later, the pain had got much worse. “I feel like I need to push!” I wailed in a complete panic. I had no idea what was inside of me.
While Mum rang for an ambulance, I waddled to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet again. As she spoke to the operator, she suddenly turned to me, wideeyed. “They want to know, could you be pregnant?” she said. “No way, I’m on the pill!” I cried.
Suddenly I heard Millie outside the bathroom door asking, “Why’s Mummy crying?”
While Mum continued to talk to the operator, I put Millie in the living room and popped Frozen on the TV to keep her distracted.
When I returned to the kitchen, Mum had laid out blankets and towels on the floor. “What are you doing?” I asked, confused. “Lie down,” she said. Mum helped me to the floor and put her phone on loudspeaker.
Then she parted my legs. “I can see a head, Claire!” she said, gasping.
I was in so much pain I didn’t have time to comprehend what she’d just said. As waves of pain rocked my body, I heard the operator saying it was time to push. I gave one last heave and felt something brush past my inner thigh and slither on to the towel. When I looked down, a baby was writhing on my kitchen floor, but it was completely silent.
Ambulance dash
“The cord’s around its neck,” Mum gasped.
I sat frozen. Mum untangled the cord and rubbed the baby’s back until he finally let out a loud wail. Moments later, paramedics flew into the kitchen and used scissors to cut the cord before helping me deliver the placenta.
“It’s a boy, Claire,” Mum smiled while rocking the baby in her arms.
As I stared at the baby, my body trembled. “Get it away from me!” I cried. “It’s not mine.”
“She’s in shock,” one of the paramedics said, before wrapping a blanket around me and trying to calm me down.
Afterwards, they put Mum and me in an ambulance while my brother Martin, 29, arrived to look after Millie and help clean up the mess in the kitchen. When he saw the baby being passed into the ambulance after us, his face turned white.
On the way to the hospital,
‘Get it away from me – it’s not mine!’
I couldn’t bear to even look at the baby. “Would you like to hold him?” a paramedic asked tentatively. I shook my head. I couldn’t stop thinking how it wasn’t my baby. If I’d been pregnant all this time, I would have known.
Only five days earlier, Ben and I had celebrated my birthday with a romantic steak dinner and red wine.
For the past eight months, I’d been working behind a bar and drinking cider and vodka after my shifts. I’d taken my pill religiously and I’d had periods as usual.
My belly was humongous when I was pregnant with Millie, whereas now I didn’t even have a bump.
“This can’t be right,” I whispered to Mum. Tearing up, she held my hand.
Once we reached the hospital and I was settled in bed on the maternity ward, a doctor examined me. “The baby was tucked up by your spine,” he explained. “Your spine would have absorbed all of its movements.”
I was stunned. Thankfully, despite everything, the baby was given a clean bill of health. Miraculously, at 7lb 11oz, he was bigger than Millie, who was 6lb 15oz when she was born.
“You need to tell Ben,” Mum said, caressing my head. Tears sprang to my eyes – I was terrified. Ben was only 21 and having a baby would change his life completely.
While I knew Ben loved me, I had no idea if he was ready to be a dad. When I finally looked at my phone, I had 10 missed calls from him. Mum persuaded me to text him. “I’ve had a baby. Please don’t freak out,” I messaged. Seconds later, my phone rang. “Is it a boy or a girl?” Ben asked. “A boy,” I stammered. “I’m on my way,” he said. Half an hour later, Ben arrived, looking more stressed than ever. As he hugged me, I burst into tears.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
A midwife told us that if we went home to talk about our options, our baby would be taken into foster care. I didn’t want that, so we decided to stay at the hospital. Then, when Ben lifted the baby into his arms, my heart melted. “Hey, buddy,” Ben said, breaking into a smile. At that moment, I knew I had to take our baby home. “I want to keep him,” I said. “Me too,” Ben replied. He passed the baby to me and its tiny hand wrapped around my finger. I fell in love with him straight away.
The next day, Ben’s sister Georgie, now 27, came to visit and gazed at our baby in complete shock. She was over the moon.
“If I had a baby boy, I’d call him Finn,” she said. I loved it. Thankfully, Georgie didn’t mind us pinching the name so we called him Finlay.
hospital recovery
After three days in hospital, Millie came to visit. “Meet your little brother,” I said, holding him out. “It’s a baby,” she squealed, and began to stroke him.
Later that day, Ben and I took Finlay home to my parents’ house. Thankfully, while I’d been recovering in hospital, our families had pulled together to buy all the supplies we needed. When our friends heard the news, they couldn’t believe it.
Six months later, in October 2018, Ben, Millie, Finlay and I moved into our own home as a family of four. Finlay is now two and Millie is nearly four. Millie believes babies grow from the ground – and I can’t say I blame her.
At the time, it was a massive shock, but now I can’t imagine life without our surprise baby.