I had heard of people having kids in that surprise sort of way
but I never thought that it would happen to me.
A lot of people have nine months to prepare for a baby,
whereas we had two weeks at the most.
I went to the bathroom, and there was like just a weird pain
and he just like came out.
My name's Lara and I'm 23
and 15 months ago I had a surprise baby.
I was always super-ambitious with my career
and I wanted to own my own business.
I was just studying and going out with friends
and I was planning a year of trip.
The day before he was born, I started a new job
and I just felt so sick all day.
I sort of got out of bed and was like,
thought I was going to throw up, so I went into the bathroom.
I just got there in time,
because as soon as I got into the bathroom,
he just like came out into the toilet.
I remember like holding the walls, being like "What has just happened?
"It seems bizarre."
I like yelled out to my dad
'cause he's really good in these situations.
Dad wrapped Hudson up in a towel and was like holding the umbilical cord
and sort of like rocking him and my brother called the ambulance
and they were here like, really quickly.
I had never held a baby.
In the ambulance, people were like, "Here, hold your child."
And I was like, "I don't know how to.
"You're going to have to tell me how you hold like a newborn."
And then we got to hospital
and everyone was like "Congratulations! You've got a baby!"
And I had to explain to them that this wasn't...
I didn't know I was pregnant and wasn't planning on this.
And they were also like, "Oh, it happens,
"like it's pretty common, whatever, he's healthy."
Having concealed pregnancies or unknown pregnancies
is actually not all that uncommon.
The literature says that about one in 500 pregnancies,
the woman appears either late in pregnancy
or as late as being in labour.
Until it happens to you,
I guess you've got no real way to... to explain it.
When you tell people that you didn't know you were pregnant,
you get so many different reactions.
Then you get some people that just flat-out don't believe you
and they just sort of go like, "Okay, whatever."
My name's Megan, I'm 22 years old,
and I didn't know I was pregnant until I was in labour.
I was studying business at Swinburne, doing a Bachelor of Business
majoring in public relations, hanging out with friends all the time
and I was just really looking forward to working full time, having money
and just being independent and not tied down by study any more.
The night before, I didn't get much sleep.
I was in a lot of pain. I had cramps, I mean, all night.
I went into Triage and they pulled out a little tiny ultrasound machine,
put it on my stomach, and I heard them sort of talking to each other
and they said, "Is that a heartbeat?"
"That's a heartbeat. That's not her heartbeat."
At that point I just went, "Oh, my God."
Like, "Oh my God, that's...
"What do you mean, it's not my heartbeat?"
They did like an internal examination,
saw that I was already beginning to dilate
and they said, "You're in labour and you're going to have a baby today."
I vomited straight away and cried a little bit.
It had gone past the point of choice.
You know, we had to have the baby and that was it.
Like, he was coming.
We'll see three or four in a year that just come up unexpected.
They genuinely don't know.
As you can imagine, it's such a confronting experience
to be a normal healthy young woman one day
and be a mother an hour later.
I had no idea I was pregnant.
I had my period the whole time.
I put on weight, but I put on exactly what Hudson weighed,
so I wasn't big anywhere else and I didn't have like a belly,
it was just sort of like I needed to go to the gym a bit.
Often, young women, their abdominal muscles are so good
that their belly is quite flat
and so not the huge protruding belly that you might expect.
I didn't get my period, because I was on the Pill.
I was choosing to not have my period.
I remember, one day I was feeling a bit strange. I had some cramps.
"Okay, things are a bit worse than usual."
And they went on for a couple of days. I went to the doctor
and he said, "Go home, do a pregnancy test," so I did.
The pregnancy test came back negative.
And so that was kind of it.
I said on the first night
"Is it okay if he stays in the special care nursery?"
because I didn't want to form any sort of attachment with him.
We just wanted it to, the situation to be dealt with as soon as possible
so we could go back to a normal life.
The day we had to give him up, the day we both got discharged,
was probably the worst day of my life.
I felt like the worst person in the world because he just...
he was being taken away and I'd signed the paper to say,
"Yeah, like put him with somebody else."
He went into temporary foster care for,
it was probably about ten days whilst we made up our minds.
When Hudson was born, I wasn't with Hudson's dad James.
Um, but he came into the hospital straight away and...
Yeah, he's been really supportive.
I told him over a really bad text message.
I think it said something like
"Hey, James, like,
"so something weird happened this morning.
"I had a baby, LOL, like ha-ha,
"like, tell me what you think."
The major risk for women whose pregnancy is unknown
is that they don't access pregnancy care.
The whole time Hudson was developing,
I ate what I wanted, I was drinking,
I didn't have any check-ups or anything.
I had my 21st when I was about seven months pregnant.
So I drank alcohol, I smoked cigarettes.
I still worry that what I did whilst I was pregnant
is going to affect Theodore later on.
There are risks, particularly to the developing brain of the baby,
and there is a syndrome called foetal alcohol syndrome
where these babies are born with brain injury
and other physical problems
because mums have drunk alcohol across the pregnancy.
I guess when he reaches school age and he comes to reading and writing
we'll have to see what happens.
But as far as we can tell now, he's perfectly happy and healthy.
My life's changed a lot since I had Hudson.
I've just been like, much more focused with work.
I started my own business, called The Ladies Network.
And I've just become much more,
I guess, yeah, focused on like what's a priority and what's not.
In the end, like everything has worked out so well
and I love him more than anything
and life's really good, life's amazing.