How can you NOT KNOW you are pregnant?

grannyeggs I think even those of us who didn't get pregnant were pretty stupid and naive at 19

Amazing stories - good to hear from you again gilly

* gillybob* what a shock for everyone, but you weren't the first and it happens frequently even now. You made the most of your circumstances and it sounds like your lovely son did all the mediation. Who can resist a baby?

Grannyeggs* I hope it all turned out ok for you, too?

My Dd is now a wonderful woman of 45, I am immensely proud of her, and can not imagine life without her. I married the Father, he was my first husband, we went on to have two other children, the marriage was not a happy one, he was a verbal bully. he too was only 19 when it happened, and I was 7 months. Pregnant when we married.

Glad to hear things moved on for you Grannyeggs. I hope your next marriage was happier.

I too had very light periods Grannyeggs. There were no visible signs of pregnancy for me at all.

You are so right whenim64 . One of my grannies (amazingly the one I would have thought would have taken it the hardest) exclaimed that babies always bring joy and told my mum to "get a grip" of herself. Mind you the same granny said that there was no way I was getting in her front door without being "churched" !!

Years later when I was pregnant with my daughter who was also born early at 5lb exactly I wondered how I could have not known I was pregnant. Mind you I still didn't have much of a bump and came out of hospital in jeans.

You have a wonderful time ahead Nelliem, Grandchildren are such a delight. I know that mine have added so much to my life. The last few days of waiting for them to arrive is not easy,but is soon forgotten when you can hold them. Good luck!

I have to say that I knew I was pregnant within hours if not minutes, but had four pregnancy tests at the GPs before they agreed with me. Absentdaughter is proof that I was right.

Nelliemoser, sending calming thoughts over the ether to you! It can't be long now!
gillybob, well done to you, for not giving up under the strain of pressures from your parents. I had my daughter when I was 16. I hid my bump under a large jumper as I sat my 'O' levels, then, when when I asked my mum to write me a note to be excused gym, she asked why....? I remember looking at her wordlessly. She flew into a temper and I never did go back to school. My dad was informed when he got back from work and that was that! However, my lovely girl will be 46 next week, and I didn't give in to my parents who told me that she MUST be adopted. I just got married to the father - then discovered that he was a cruel bully. However, if I hadn't gone through with the marriage (long divorced) my daughter would have been adopted, so it was worth it. I remember my father telling me that now I'd had a baby, I'd be looked on as easy by other boys...! I've actually only just remembered that conversation - and it's made me feel so angry (even now) to think that he could say that to me.

Marelli How terribly hard. Society was so different then. You have your wonderful daughter and you are such a strong, steadfast and delightful woman. How did you do with your O levels and the baggy jumper?

Does anyone remember reading Lorna Sage's 'Bad Blood'?
She came from a very repressive family, got pregnant and gave birth in the middle of doing her A Levels, went on to university and became Professor of English at East Anglia University.

Well, absent (thank you!)...the big baggy jumper was a sort of horrible light brown....and I remember having to go to the Head's office to get told off about not wearing uniform! She probably knew what was up, but just told me to make more effort to wear the right stuff in the future (she would have some idea that my future didn't include going back after the exams anyway)! My results came back a few days after my daughter was born, and when I was home from hospital - without DD, as she was still awaiting adoption, as far as my parents were concerned - the local GP called in to see me. He gave me a right good telling off for not doing better (I only got 4, but I think I have quite a good excuse for that)!
Anyway, I actually remembered not really caring very much! I was used to being told off. I knew I wasn't stupid - maybe not brilliantly clever, but not stupid.
And it all worked out in the end, didn't it?

I didn't get pregnant before I was married (by good fortune!) but I well remember those times when I thought I might be and the terror of what would happen if I was.

They were awful times for this particular issue. Mother and child being looked on as shameful by everybody else.

Even those who got pregnant and then had a child at seven months carried the stigma for ever after, having to hide marriage/birth certificates etc.

This is one way in which, in my opinion, the 'old days' were much worse than modern times.

Indeed it did, Marelli.

Marelli (((hugs))) and . You must have had to grow up so quickly. It takes huge strength of character to stand your ground against so much opposition. They certainly were different days.

If you look into your family history, as I've been doing, it's quite an eye-opener comparing dates of marriages and births. To say nothing of all the people whose 'elder sister' was actually their Mum. There was a lot of it went on! And for my generation, the scandal about babies conceived and born while the mother's husband was a PoW or overseas on active service. They used to say it was the innocent ones who got caught out.

In the 1960s, when I was serving in the Army, a fellow NCO who lived in the same mess as me gave birth, insisting she did not know she was pregnant. She certainly didn't look pregnant (she was not overweight but what was termed, I think, "big boned"!) even in uniform, which was fairly close fitting. None of us had the slightest idea she was. She began having stomach pains one evening and it got so bad we sent for the duty medical orderly, who promptly gave her aspirin and told her to go to bed! She got worse and worse until the medical officer came and announced that she was in the end stages of labour and dashed her off to hospital where she gave birth to a seven poundish baby boy. I and my fellow mess members were quite stunned by the whole thing, realising that none of us would have known what to do if she had actually had this baby in-situ, as it were (and we were considered to be an intelligent bunch!). There was much discussion about towels and hot water but no-one had the slightest idea what they were for! We didn't have much that could have passed for maternal education in those days! She had to leave the Army as, in those days, mothers, married or otherwise, were not catered for. It is, I believe, different these days. You are allowed to continue to serve if you become a mother. I hope she and her then fiancee are now contented grandparents!

Butter and baubles - ! xx

Two friends of mine were both ''change of life'' babies.Both of their mothers being unaware they were pregnant until the last few weeks, as they were in their late forties and thought the absence of their periods was ''the change'' starting.
One friend's mother, on discovering she was in fact pregnant, said her biggest fear was telling her two adult daughters, the embarassment of knowing that she and their father were still having sex!.The other friend;s motherhad four almost grown up sons and after the initial shock of knowing she was about to give birth, was overjoyed when she had her longed for daughter.
Both my friends are now in their sixties.

Nationality for baby borned at Bastion.- I understand the armed forces lady is Finian. The baby was borned in Afghanistan and will be flown to the UK in an Hercules. Which Nationality is this baby then? Can someone throw some legal views on this?

AFghanistani - Fijian or British?
advice please

What stories, and how I identify with them.
At 18 I was very innocent, still at school, but I did have a boy friend much to my father's disapproval. One night I came home at 20 to 11, not really that late? My father was in a rage. He accused me of being up to no good he was very angry and violent and would not listen to me. My mother did nothing to stop this. He called me all manner of names.My father told me that I was second hand and no decent man would look at me. He also said that there are 2 types of women in the world, those who you marry and those you have sex with. I decided there and then that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I started to have sex with my boyfriend. I did not get pregnant but if I had, I would not have gone home. My father's violent outburst at this time had an affect on any sexual relationships I had for years.
I still do not forgive him.

Sorry, sorry to go on. I have been wanting to rage about this for years.

My neighbour, who already had two children, was rushed into hospital with suspected burst appendix and came home a couple of days later with a baby. The first she knew was when the doctor at a and e examined her and asked her if she wanted a girl or a boy. She'd hadn't missed any periods and her stomach stayed flat.

A well known phenomenon .
Many years ago, my father was called to a house. He delivered a healthy, full term baby.
The future gran, watched the whole proceedings without a word!
After the child was delivered , she took it and shook it under her daughters nose saying!
" now! Will you say you haven't been with any boys?"

glitabo - your story touched me very much. My older sister got pregnant when she was 20 and my father was all for throwing her out. My mother stood up to him (about the only time she did) and she kept the baby. When my niece was about 2, my sister met a man in a pub (I was babysitting) and made a date. She always told any man she met she had a baby, which shocked some in 1950. She asked my father if he would turn up and he said 'Well, I wouldn't want second hand goods'. My brother assured her that he certainly would - he did, and they got married.
My other sister also got pregnant by her long-term boyfriend and, in terror, got married in a rush, which she lived to regret.
This is probably one reason why I got married at 18 - I knew I dared not risk getting pregnant.
How different things are now, thank goodness.