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I Didn't Know I was Pregnant


Cassandra

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In the soldier's case, she worked out every day for extended periods of time and had the additional issue of combat stress in Afghanistan. Coupled with being shy and reticent about her private life (reported by her friends) I suppose denial and external factors mixed?

My period hates me and either won't bother showing up at all or will show up with a vengeance and then reappear two weeks later, still bent on causing as much aggro as possible. I've given up expecting it to do anything sensible or predictable. For some of these ladies I suspect it could be the same and not having a period could seem normal or bleeding through pregnancy could happen.

I asked an older friend about this phenomenon and she knew 2 women who had this. One woman was 42 and in epic denial, that and she'd had menopause symptoms so she talked herself into believing it was more of the same. The other, it was where her baby was resting. She had been worried by other symptoms but she never felt a baby kick and nor did she stop bleeding, her period was regular every month.

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I've only watched a few times, but when I did it usually seemed to be women who'd been told they were infertile, so they weren't using birth control because they didn't think they needed it. A lot of them also seemed to have health conditions that caused them to gain weight and/or go for months at a time without having a period, so when those things happened, they didn't think anything of it.

I guess that explains it. I've always wondered how anyone could be that dumb. People say "oh but they still had periods" (really? that's not even possible, maybe some light bleeding that happens to seem regular but you can't have flipping uterine lining shedding) and "they didn't notice" - wouldn't you feel weird sensations and get it checked out, just in case? I suppose if you've never been pregnant you might think you have gas or something. In fact I've never been pregnant so maybe you don't feel the baby.

The being told they're infertile thing seems to be the one that makes the most sense, because I've always thought sex = possibility of pregnancy so if I had even a few signs or just something going wrong I'd check it out JUST TO MAKE SURE even if I thought things were unlikely. And I believefthey do routine pregnancy tests in hospitals for that reason when people come in with stomach ache etc.

Anyway I've never seen the show, I don't think I need to start watching any more terrible shows as I seem to have picked up a few lately when I am normally TV-free!

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Not if you have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which several of the women on the show have. It causes infertility, weight gain, and amenorrhea, so I can see that a women with PCOS wouldn't think of pregnancy first.

Or you use a birth control method that reduces/eliminates periods. I have several friends who use oral contraceptives on a three month schedule, so they wouldn't know about a skipped period for a few months.

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I guess that explains it. I've always wondered how anyone could be that dumb. People say "oh but they still had periods" (really? that's not even possible, maybe some light bleeding that happens to seem regular but you can't have flipping uterine lining shedding) and "they didn't notice" - wouldn't you feel weird sensations and get it checked out, just in case? I suppose if you've never been pregnant you might think you have gas or something. In fact I've never been pregnant so maybe you don't feel the baby.

The being told they're infertile thing seems to be the one that makes the most sense, because I've always thought sex = possibility of pregnancy so if I had even a few signs or just something going wrong I'd check it out JUST TO MAKE SURE even if I thought things were unlikely. And I believefthey do routine pregnancy tests in hospitals for that reason when people come in with stomach ache etc.

Anyway I've never seen the show, I don't think I need to start watching any more terrible shows as I seem to have picked up a few lately when I am normally TV-free!

When I went on the combination pill, my doctor told me to expect periods that lasted a day or so and required only panty-liners. Then when I went on the progestin only pill, my doctor told me to expect my periods to be that light if they didn't stop altogether. They're as heavy as ever for me, but it sounds pretty typical for certain people's uterine shedding to consist of only spotting. I have a friend whose periods are brief spotting, and she's not on anything. I seriously envy her, but at least I can be reasonably sure I'm not pregnant.

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I think some of them, the periods stop but it could be due to other factors? Like in my example, the woman in question may have had stopped periods due to being generally athletic and combat stress. I have heard (anecdotally) that stopped periods are common in soldiers in combat zones.

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It's recognized by medical professional! And pregnancy denials happen to women who know they are pregnant too. A friend of a friend did not show until she was 7 months along. And she was very thin. The doctor was like are you sure everything is ok? Kind of offered psy help too. She just did not show.

Another friend of mine she was very stressed about finishing her MA thesis. She was 4 months along and had no hint of a belly, thin girl. Within a week of her finishing her thesis I saw her and she had popped to a belly. It was just impressive.

Stress and other things just control your body a lot. Research has shown that women who get pregnancy denial (did not know) the uterus expands upwards against the column rather than going up front. Most of the time, babies who are in those conditions are not in a fetal position, but rather in an upward one. And they have also shown that those foetuses do not move much.

When you get your period on time, don't put any noticeable weight and your uterus does not go up front, how would you know you're pregnant (and yes I'm always happy to go to my annual and hear, nice small uterus no baby cue relieved sigh). I'm sure the show covers other situations where women are less knowledgeable, but we looked with my disbeleving roommate how often it can happen and it's more than one would think. (I think it was like 500 per year in Germany, with the US having a higher population).

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I totally think its feasible. I only figured it out with my son around 12 weeks because I had a single day of weird nausea that made me take a test. Never having had regular periods before and never having had intercourse before, I didn't jump to the pregnancy conclusion. If it weren't for that one day, I would have likely gone much longer.

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This has me paranoid, especially since I'm not thin. It would be weird to have sex one day and give birth 9 months later without realizing I was pregnant, especially after not feeling the baby move, not having a belly, and still having regular periods, which is what happened to this one woman on an episode of Trauma: Life in the ER.

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I think I recall at least two women on two different episodes who were on birth control got pregnant because they were taking antibiotics around the time of conception. So, somehow the antibiotics cancelled out the birth control (don't know which type of b.c. they were on). Anybody remember those? (Or am I making this up?)

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I think I recall at least two women on two different episodes who were on birth control got pregnant because they were taking antibiotics around the time of conception. So, somehow the antibiotics cancelled out the birth control (don't know which type of b.c. they were on). Anybody remember those? (Or am I making this up?)

Nope, it totally happens, and I'm pretty sure it happened on an episode. Antibiotics and antacids will make your birth control less effective.

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Maybe that was their excuse, but study after study has failed to show any statistically significant interaction between antibiotics and the birth control pill (I think including the mini pill). Only one type of antibiotic interacts, rifampicin, which is mostly given for tuberculosis or something not that common. I do hear it a lot though and a lot of sources say not to take antibiotics (even pharmacists!) but it seems to be not based on fact. I've asked the last few doctors who prescribed me the pill and they all denied any interaction.

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Maybe that was their excuse, but study after study has failed to show any statistically significant interaction between antibiotics and the birth control pill (I think including the mini pill). Only one type of antibiotic interacts, rifampicin, which is mostly given for tuberculosis or something not that common. I do hear it a lot though and a lot of sources say not to take antibiotics (even pharmacists!) but it seems to be not based on fact. I've asked the last few doctors who prescribed me the pill and they all denied any interaction.

What? Every season on Teen Mom there is a girl who gets pregnant because she takes antibiotics and their pill fails. And Every season they make it clear you should use back up when using antibiotics.

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Maybe that was their excuse, but study after study has failed to show any statistically significant interaction between antibiotics and the birth control pill (I think including the mini pill). Only one type of antibiotic interacts, rifampicin, which is mostly given for tuberculosis or something not that common. I do hear it a lot though and a lot of sources say not to take antibiotics (even pharmacists!) but it seems to be not based on fact. I've asked the last few doctors who prescribed me the pill and they all denied any interaction.

Every doctor who's written me a prescription has warned me about it.

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Maybe that was their excuse, but study after study has failed to show any statistically significant interaction between antibiotics and the birth control pill (I think including the mini pill). Only one type of antibiotic interacts, rifampicin, which is mostly given for tuberculosis or something not that common. I do hear it a lot though and a lot of sources say not to take antibiotics (even pharmacists!) but it seems to be not based on fact. I've asked the last few doctors who prescribed me the pill and they all denied any interaction.

I looked it up, and you're right. According to the abstract of Oral contraceptive efficacy and antibiotic interaction: A myth debunked, a critical review of literature on the subject

Clinical reports of contraceptive failure with antibiotic use are retrospective, have multiple potential biases, and are not supported by pharmacokinetic data.
(Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, June 2002)

So there. A certain percentage of all breakthrough pregnancies happen to take place during the same month that antibiotics were used, and the person usually attributes the pregnancy to the antibiotics, when it was really just that - a breakthrough pregnancy.

Also, if anyone was wondering, the American Academy of Dermatology published it because dermatologists prescribe both birth control and antibiotics for acne. And according to the study, there was no data on the progestin only pill as of 2002.

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I think user error comes into play. I once had a discussion with a woman who didn't realize it was best to take the pill at the same time every day, especially if it's a progestin-only pill.

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I think user error comes into play. I once had a discussion with a woman who didn't realize it was best to take the pill at the same time every day, especially if it's a progestin-only pill.

Hahahaha, this is how Small and Smaller showed up. Their mum suffered from a fair bit of confusion on how Pills work. :lol:

Still, she was very happy with the result!

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Hahahaha, this is how Small and Smaller showed up. Their mum suffered from a fair bit of confusion on how Pills work. :lol:

Still, she was very happy with the result!

Heh, I was the result of a pill that was later recalled because it wasn't effective.

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