If you had a "surprise" baby...

[Ginevra]

(or more than one), what was the nature of the "surprise"?

[Aunty Social]

I have two - the first one I was at my annual exam, completely clueless, and the Dr. says...."You're pregnant."

:001_huh::confused::001_huh:

So much for birth control:lol:

 

We planned our second, but with the third I sat straight up in bed (I was lying down with my 1 yo for naptime) and thought - "What date is it?!"

 

We had one car at the time, so I called my friend, who obliged the crazy lady and agreed to take me to the store. Yup - I was pregnant! The funny thing is, I don't keep track of my cycle dates, because they are very erratic.....somehow, I just knew.

[Jumping In Puddles]

Well, I don't know if this qualifies as a surprise but we had been trying to conceive our first child for almost a whole year when I finally got pregnant.

 

When ds was 5 months old, we thought it would take another year to conceive our 2nd and that would be just about right. :001_huh: So I was surprised to conceive the first month we tried.

[Mabelen]

I voted other. It was both a medical surprise and the fact that we had not been using any birth control.

 

Medical surprise because we had been experiencing secondary infertility for a couple of years although no cause had been found (it could have been dh's little swimmers, but we decided not to go through any fertility intervention so he had not been tested). It was hard to go through the infertility and we were not using any birth control. By the time I got pregnant we were finally at peace with not adding to our family. I was also 39, and 40 years old was let's say my personal cut off age for babies. I was about to start using birth control the following month when... bingo! She is now 5 and we are soo glad to have her!

[Melissa in Australia]

first surprise was with no 3. I found out I was pregnant and had been on the pill.

second surprise was with no 4. was on a stronger pill, and fell pregnant

third surprise was after I had my tubes clamped. I went to the doctor because I thought I was going through early menopause. I was pregnant. I had a miscarriage with that one. I then went and saw a gynecologist I had some problems with the clip tearing through my tube, and had an operation. he tested with dye and said no chance of getting pregnant. I fell pregnant with no 5 two months after.

[Sasharowan]

I was still nursing #2 who was almost 11 mos. at the time. She started refusing to nurse and I bought a test and sure enough, here came #3.

[fleischdoc]

Our surprise was that baby 3 was also baby 4-did not find out until 6 months at first sonogram.

Lisa

[Aggie]

I voted other. It was both a medical surprise and the fact that we had not been using any birth control.

 

Medical surprise because we had been experiencing secondary infertility for a couple of years although no cause had been found (it could have been dh's little swimmers, but we decided not to go through any fertility intervention so he had not been tested). It was hard to go through the infertility and we were not using any birth control. By the time I got pregnant we were finally at peace with not adding to our family. I was also 39, and 40 years old was let's say my personal cut off age for babies. I was about to start using birth control the following month when... bingo! She is now 5 and we are soo glad to have her!

 

 

Our story is very similar. We wanted a third baby and had been trying for 3 years. I just figured secondary infertility and didn't pursue any treatment because we had 2 lovely dds and I was in my late 30's.

 

When we got home after a trip, our neighbor picked us up and told us she had the stomach flu.:glare: So when I got the "virus" 2 days later, I wasn't surprised. But when I still had it 2 weeks later.....the preg test was positive!

 

I was 41 when I got pg ;) Ds is more of a miracle than a surprise, imo.:001_smile:

[newbie]

I have two - the first one I was at my annual exam, completely clueless, and the Dr. says...."You're pregnant."

:001_huh::confused::001_huh:

So much for birth control:lol:

 

We planned our second, but with the third I sat straight up in bed (I was lying down with my 1 yo for naptime) and thought - "What date is it?!"

 

We had one car at the time, so I called my friend, who obliged the crazy lady and agreed to take me to the store. Yup - I was pregnant! The funny thing is, I don't keep track of my cycle dates, because they are very erratic.....somehow, I just knew.

 

This was kind of the story of my second, I went to get the birth control shot, I forgot what its called. But, they check to see if you are pregnant prior and I thought nothing of it.

 

Come to find out, hello Surprise. No shot today Jet, just happy news of baby nbr. 2.

[FO4UR]

I was nursing full-time and using other methods...#2 is only 14mo older than #3. He was a GOOD swimmer LOL:D

[OneRoomSchoolHouse]

We were married and in college (I was 20)...after 6 months of being careful, we decided to not use any birth control methods for Valentines day...our first time was THE right time!

[kalanamak]

We were trying, but the odds against us were high, with lousy hormones, lousy swimmers and a tubal reversal + age. We were IVF rejects....both of us.

[Geo]

I chose "other," here's why:

Though not officially diagnosed, my husband and I seem to have fertility issues. I had my first son at 16yo in 1974. It was nine years later before our second was born in '83. Joyously, baby #3 followed exactly 2 years later ('85). Then, a long seven years passed until our fourth child was born in '92...and yet another seven years until our fifth was born in 1998. I was 40 years old by then. Well, we figured she was truly our little miracle "foot-in-the-door" baby, as menopause comes early to the women in our family. Both my mother and sister were post menses at 40 years old. I had already started missing periods when I conceived her. These long awaited children were deeply desired AND somewhat surprising due to their delay in coming. However, a son three years later at the age of 43 was what knocked me off my chair! By then, I had no periods to watch for and I truly thought we were done. It took 2 weeks of nausea until the light bulb went on...I was truly caught off guard! Breastfeeding while entering menopause was a real trip too...not many books or mentors on that topic. :w00t: Not to mention the fact that I birthed 6 babies over four decades! ...one in the 70's....two in the 80's...one in the 90's and two in the New Millenium....with one man in one marriage. Today, our children are 35, 26, 24, 17, 10 and 7. Except for a very brief time after our 3rd child (less than 6 months), we never used birth control of any kind. Honestly, half our kids were a surprise. So, I'd say we're basically an infertile couple with six children. BTW, wouldn't that make us an...oxymoron?

 

Geo

Edited July 30, 2009 by Geo
punctuation

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

He, he. Well... ds number 3 kept begging for a baby brother. He would not quit. He even informed us that he had told God. We told him not to get his hopes up. So, either there was a tiny error in prevention, or God listened to my very earnest 4yo.

[mrsrevmeg]

....and well, Sweet little Samuel came into the picture.:001_huh:I must admit, he was a nice surprise!!

[SLH in ND]

Medical Mystery/fertility issues.

It didn't take to much trying for dd#1. With dd#2 we tried for awhile, then used Clomid. Doctor told us that we'd most likely not conceive "without help" again. When dd#2 was a few months old and nursing, I began to have pre-menopausal symptoms. When I talked to the ob's nurse she said I should take a pregnancy test. I had a good laugh and said "yeah, right." That night I was staring at a positive pregnancy test and not many months later, welcomed dd#3 into the world!

 

She was, by far, the best surprise I have ever had in my life. She was born just a few weeks before my Grandmother died and was the Great-Grandchild she had been waiting for.....a dark haired one! My other 2 were so blonde (almost white) and #3 had a head full of jet black hair.

 

Sheri :)

[swellmomma]

My first 2 were complete surprises. The first one, I had barely been dating the guy and we got into a huge fight while he was driving me home from work. He yells "Why are you being such a b(*&%* ?) and yelled back "Because I am pregnant!" The thing was my period was not due for another week, I had no reason to think I was pregnant it jsut came out of my mouth. We broke up that night. Skip forward 1 more week, no period, wait a week still nothing. Call him up and ask him to take me to the store to buy a test, test at his house, bright line shows up before even done. Came out of the bathroom in shock and hand him the test. He says "What does this mean?" I say "that line means it worked, THAT line means baby" He says "Where's the instructions". I moved in with him that night.

 

 

Gave birth to ds, 4 weeks later my cycle returns, think nothing of it. We resume "marital relations" wrongly assuming that because we just had a baby my body would not conceive yet. WRONG! When ds was 9.5 weeks old, I realized I had not had a 2nd period yet. Just had a feeling that something was up. Went to store, bought a test, it was positive. Went back to store, bought one of every test they had, all positive. By this time my mind is spinning. Call bf say have to go to dr after work tonight. Dr decides to do a 48 hour blood test instead of urine test. Have first draw on Friday night, second draw Sunday afternoon. Dr phones us Sunday night at around 8 pm and says "Congratulations you are pregnant". I promptly drop phone, fall on couch, look at bf and say "We need another crib"

 

After that the next 2 were very much planned lol

[Heather in OK]

Since I can't vote multiple times...LOL

 

#1 - TOTAL surprise. We weren't trying or preventing really. Just learned that w/drawl doesn't work. :tongue_smilie:

 

#2 - TOTAL surprise. I had been on bcp, went off with the idea to wait 6mo to get it out of my system, then ttc. We were using bc but abandoned it due to frustration and SURPRISE.

 

#3 - TOTAL surprise and we were trying to avoid (TTA). I was charting my cycles to avoid pregnancy. I had a pretty regular ovulation pattern normally but that month my body decided to ovulate a few days earlier than usual. I got pregnant from sperm that hung around for 4 days. ;)

 

#4 - Somewhat of a surprise but we weren't trying or preventing. Again, I was charting my cycles and we had had several months where it was quite possible to have been pregnant but God knew the right timing. :) The month we did conceive I think I ended up ovulating a few days early (again..lol).

[MamaAkins]

All of mine are surprise miracles. I was diagnosed with lymphoma at age 19 and was told that I would most likely never concieve due to the chemo and radiation treatments that I went through. Never use "supposed infertility" as your method of birth control. Within 4 months I was pregnant. At the time that we found out, we were told that the pregnancy probably wouldn't make it or that our baby could suffer from birth defects due to the treatments I had. Lo and behold, that little surprise is now a healthy, vivacious almost 12 year old daughter. #2 and #3 were more planned. #4 is a complete surprise/miracle. I was taking birth control and never, ever missed a single pill.

[Osaubi]

#1 was a surprise that I didn't find out until I was 4 months pregnant. I didn't ever keep track of my cycles, but realized something was wrong when my cycle was not at the same time as the rest of the girls. I also continue to get my cycle for a couple of months when pregnant.

 

#2 was not a total surprise since we talked about it first. We said yes then a couple of weeks later decided we would wait. It still took a couple of months before I knew.

[Shawna in Texas]

Opportunistic sperm! :lol:

 

I have two. One was a feasible. The other was a medical mystery. The pregnancies were 9 years apart. I think my body panicked when I hit 30 and finally dropped the egg she had been hoarding.

[ChrisB]

Our surprise was that baby 3 was also baby 4-did not find out until 6 months at first sonogram.

Lisa

 

Our surprise was that baby #2 was also baby #3. My OB/GYN didn't see twins during the first ultrasound. At the routine 20wk ultrasound, the ultrasound tech asked if we had had an ultrasound before that one. We said yes. She told DH to sit down...there were 2 babies in there :eek:.

[Word Nerd]

We were spending Thanksgiving with relatives in the country. DH forgot to pack any protection, and we decided we didn't really care. I had recently gone off the pill and was using NFP until we were officially ready to start trying. It just happened sooner than I had intended. My cycles were really long after stopping BC, and I assumed I had already ovulated and missed it.

[Word Nerd]

BTW, I just received an email the other day announcing a pregnancy. He had a V 5 years ago, so it was quite a surprise for them! I also know someone who was born 10 years after her mother had her tubes tied (she apparently thought she had a tumor and was shocked and relieved to learn it was a surprise baby instead!).

[Amber in SJ]

After #3 we started making plans for Dh to get the big "V" While still nursing my cycle returned, so I went on BC pills, the first prescription was giving me trouble, so the Dr changed me to another pill. I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough coverage during the change over, so we also added condoms to the mix. I realized I was a couple of days late, so I did what was guaranteed to get things started, I bought an expensive pg test. At 5am I took the test, looked at the results but because I "knew" I could NOT be pregnant, the positive didn't even register, so I went back to bed. About 30 seconds later my eyes flew upen, I jumped out of bed looked at the results & smacked my dh awake.

 

Baby #4 has been such a blessing!

 

Amber in SJ

[Tap]

Other....

 

We were quite done and content with 2 kids. We never even had a conversation about a 3rd, we were very done.

 

Then my niece lost her baby to the state...and she came to us at 5mo.

 

So we have 3, much to our surprise :0)

[Dirtroad]

My current pregnancy was a shocker! We don't use BC, but it has been 8 years & I am past 40... really thought it was not an issue.:lol: Surprise!

 

I read the post about finding twins in 2nd ultrasound... I am so huge and have wondered about it.. .tomorrow is my second ultrasound.... makes me wonder! I may get to add more to this thread tomorrow afternoon.

[Amber in AUS]

I have a good one to share. I put 'other' because it isn't my story.

 

My Dad had a vasectomy after my sister and & I were born. They were only ever having 2 babies close together in age. 8 years later my Mum announced she was preg, my Dad thought affair and things were bad until he had a sperm count. Turns out he is an excellent healer and the vasectomy had naturally reversed itself!! My youngest sister was born 9m later, she is 10 years younger than me and 8 younger than my other sister.

 

My Dad had another vasectomy and my Mum had her tubes tied and would you believe it that is has reversed itself again!!!

[Unicorn.]

Our surprise was that baby #2 was also baby #3. QUOTE]

 

This was our surprise- baby #2 was also #3- but we found out at our first visit. My ob-gyn was doing an ultrasound and dh said "There it is" and the doc said, "No. There THEY are!"

We both replied w/ "Oh Sh$t!" :tongue_smilie:

[TCoppock]

My mother got preganat with my youngest brother AFTER a tubaligation! She thought she was going through pre-menopause and didn't find out until an annual exam.

[Laura Corin]

Husband and I had been together for eight years and knew ourselves to be infertile (no swimmers). Then one little guy took swimming lessons and the result was Calvin. Three and a half years later, another one made it to the finishing line, and that was Hobbes. All these years later, we still can't believe our luck.

 

Laura

[keptwoman]

Total surprise. I got pregnant with an IUD in place.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Just posting hoping that posting on this thread will raise my chance of a surprise :) If it happened, it would be medical/infertility.

[Ginevra]

Thanks you all so much for indulging me! These are wonderful fun to read.

[schsmom]

first surprise was with no 3. I found out I was pregnant and had been on the pill.

second surprise was with no 4. was on a stronger pill, and fell pregnant

third surprise was after I had my tubes clamped. I went to the doctor because I thought I was going through early menopause. I was pregnant. I had a miscarriage with that one. I then went and saw a gynecologist I had some problems with the clip tearing through my tube, and had an operation. he tested with dye and said no chance of getting pregnant. I fell pregnant with no 5 two months after.

 

:)divine intervention I think

[KingM]

This was our surprise- baby #2 was also #3- but we found out at our first visit. My ob-gyn was doing an ultrasound and dh said "There it is" and the doc said, "No. There THEY are!"

We both replied w/ "Oh Sh$t!" :tongue_smilie:

 

Same thing happened to us. #2 and #3 at the same time. Almost ten years later I can say there's a reason they usually come one at a time.

 

The surprise for us was that I was able to talk my wife into having another baby after the twins made our life so interesting. At first we had both assumed we were done, but then I started getting this niggling desire. The first time I brought it up to my wife here eyes bugged out. "Are you kidding?" Six months later, I'd beaten down her defenses. ;)

 

I think she agreed, in part, because she hadn't thought she would get pregnant. She got pregnant with our oldest the first month off birth control, having talked me into trying after only a year of marriage. The twins came only after two years of trying and clomid to help things along.

 

Well, the little guy wanted to come, too. Pregnant the first month.

[Karen in CO]

All three of mine were surprises. My doctor told me - 99% is 99% for a reason. All three were different forms of birth control which were used consistently, and all three were surprises. I love surprises there are so few of them in life.

[TeacherZee]

This thread makes me happy. I have no story to share but I wanted to say that this thread makes me happy:001_smile:

[lionfamily1999]

DD was a surprise and I was foolish.

 

With older ds, I hadn't had my time for four months and was not pregnant. I was scared to go to the doctors, we have cervical issues in the family and I didn't want to know. We stopped using any bcmethod, thinking I was sick or there was something wrong. I went to the docs, dragged by Mom and big sister, and found out I was pregnant, but only a few weeks. We never figured out why I'd missed the other four months.

 

Youngest ds...... well......... older ds was looking like such a big boy and we both thought, golly we should have another baby, so we tried, once... the next day we thought, that was crazy let's never speak of it again... And now we have Luke :)

[Impish]

Both my girls were total surprises. Diva, I was using FOUR forms of bc. BCP, condom, spermicide, AND tracking my cycle. I say she's still as stubborn now as she was about being conceived! :D

 

Princess...I blame my dh. See, with Tazzie we'd been trying for a year, with no results. Then he says, "You know, I really DO want this, I really want a baby." and bang! I was pregnant with Tazzie that month. So, I was on the bcp, and Wolf says, "You know...two close in age wouldn't be bad at all...I think it would be kinda cool." and next thing I know, its 3 wks later, and the test is positive.

 

I swear my dh has some sort of mind control over his swimmers!

[myfunnybunch]

I voted "other."

 

I was sick. Went straight from the doctor to work. A kind friend picked up my prescription at the pharmacy, dropped it off at my workplace, and neglected to mention that the pharmacist told her that with that particular antibiotic one must take extra birth control precautions.

 

Oops.

 

My daughter turned 14 on Saturday. :001_wub:

 

Cat

[kmacnchs]

no surprises here...I know to the day when I got pregnant with my last child.

However, we only *tried* with our middle dd. The others I *thought* we were not wanting to get pg but my dh thought otherwise. I tell him when I am ovulating and kind of let him take it from there...oh well ;)

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

No real surprises, but we were only officially trying with ds. With the other three we weren't trying or avoiding. It was a little bit of a surprise that I got pregnant so quickly though. I got pregnant the first full cycle after each child. So we've only missed 5 eggies since we got married 6 years ago!

[HSMom2One]

My surprise baby came at the age of 47 when my bio granddaughter was up for adoption. (Long story...so I won't go into details here.) Anyway, it was a no brainer for us. Dh and I were of the same mind, didn't even need to discuss it because we were already so in love with her. We marched down to the attorneys office and filed the papers. Next thing we knew our baby girl arrived at our doorstep. I will NEVER forget the moment she was placed in my arms and I became her mother. It still gives me a lump in my throat when I think about it.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[Carrie12345]

First "surprise"- single lax episode

Second "surprise"- single lax episode, apparently during 1st ovulation (breastfeeding) after previous baby. SERIOUS SHOCK!

Third "surprise"- single lax episode while on a fabulous vacation ;)

Fourth "surprise"- with IUD (ectopic) SCARY SERIOUS SHOCK!

 

I've also had one planned pregnancy (1st month trying) that I miscarried and one planned pregnancy (2nd month trying) that went as planned.

 

Our super-fertility is the subject of many family jokes around here. :tongue_smilie:

[jujsky]

We had unexplained infertility and didn't want to go the medicated route. We did an unmedicated IUI, got pregnant, and lost the baby. I was done with doctors at that point, so we decided to adopt from Russia since DH and his family are from there originally. We went through the process, got our referral, went over to meet our beautiful son in January, 2004, and I realized I was late. I didn't think too much of it; it happened before when we were TTC and travelled overseas. I figured it was stress. We returned home with our court-date to adopt 3 weeks away, took a pregnancy test just to be sure.......and I was pregnant! We became parents twice in the span of 7 months. We adopted our 6 month-old son in February, 2004, and gave birth to our beautiful daughter in September, 2004.

 

I'm not a religious person (agnostic), but I believe some greater force had a hand in all this. That little boy was meant to be ours. I always had it in my heart to adopt (even as a small child my mom remembers me talking about it), but DH didn't feel that conviction. If we hadn't experienced infertility, I never wouldn't have ended up adopting a child. As for DS, he looks like my dad's side of the family, and has my brother's personality. He is challenging as can be, but such a joy!

[NavyWifeandMommy]

Thought my son would be close a year when number three came. I found out I was expecting when my son was just 3 months old!

[Twinmom]

I figure this probably counts for "other" ;) :

 

We'd adopted two babies with special needs (ages 3 and 1 at the time) and had one of our own (22), with no plans to adopt again, at least for a while. We were not "in process" in any way (no paperwork in, no current home study, no available cash...) We got an out of the blue phone call asking us to adopt potentially special needs twin boys...in just one month! :svengo:Seems our ds's birth parents had an "oops" and had been embarrassed both to admit it and the fact that they'd started using drugs...

 

A month later we were the parents of four special needs kids under the age of 4! I'm still floored that we all survived it intact...but the kids are healthy and happy and we didn't stroke out in the process, so I guess that counts for something! :D They are all incredible little blessings.

 

I guess you can have an "oops" even if you can't have biological children! ;)

[caitlinsmom]

My 3rd was a surprise in the fact that I thought it would take while to get pregnant. Nope 1 weeek.

 

This one, our fourth, was a HUGE surprise. I know my cycles pretty darn well so we know when to back up and when to play. I got sick in March and in the end it kicked my ovulation back 3 weeks and now I am due in Decemeber. :) We have both had a hard time with this one as we weren't planning on any babies for 3 or 4 years.

[Irene Lynn]

Once our schooling was done and we had bought a house, our dd came pretty quickly. We are the kind to live and let live. We don't "try" and we don't "not try". I know my body was messed up after our dd. The Dr. didn't think I was ovulating for at least 2 years after our dd. I just didn't have that hormonal up and down at all. It took a long time for that to return to normal. Our son came 13.5 years after his sister. Yes, he was a surprise/shock. I knew we could have another child and I was willing, but I wasn't really expecting anything.

 

My mother had a similar experience in that my sister came along easily enough, then it took 6 more years for me to come along. She had an early miscarriage 6 years after me, so she had 3 pregnancies in 6 year intervals with the desire to have more children. My MIL was told she would never have any children, then had 2 boys 18 months apart, then didn't have any more. They also wanted more children.

 

My BIL only has 1 child, but I don't know the circumstances there.

 

My sister conceived with the help of medication. After her dd, they tried again with meds, but miscarried.

 

Our family just doesn't seem to have many children.

 

We are thankful that God waited so long to give us our son. He takes a type of patience that I didn't have years ago. He is a lot like me, which I love, but he would have tormented his sensitive big sister to pieces, if she were not so old when he was born. Trying to balance a child, who was easily overwhelmed with noise and activity with one who is quite rowdy and aggressive (in a boy way not in a mean way.) and loves company and stimulation would have been very difficult.

 

I think my body was more shocked than my mind and heart. It still has not recovered. I was 40 and out of shape. Now I am stronger and in better shape than I was, but a couple of areas don't seem to respond to much of anything. (One area I can think of might respond to surgery!)