A woman in Virginia, USA, did not know she was pregnant until a nurse spotted her baby crowning.
Becca Johnson, a mother of two with fertility issues, had previously been informed by doctors that she would not fall pregnant without intervention.
She had also struggled to lose her postpartum weight due to polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal condition affecting women of childbearing age.
Highlights
- Becca Johnson, diagnosed with PCOS and told she could not conceive naturally, discovered her third pregnancy only while in labor.
- A nurse spotted the baby crowning after Johnson went to the ER for severe back pain, thinking it was kidney stones or constipation.
- Johnson credited the unexpected birth to divine intervention, naming her daughter Carlee Evangeline.
Becca Johnson had already proved medical prognosis wrong once
Image credits: Getty/Unsplash (Not the actual image)
She had struggled through years of fertility procedures and therapies after she married in 2011.
Then in 2016, she got pregnant with her first child. It was then that doctors told her about her PCOS and informed her that another natural birth would be unlikely.
In 2024, they were proved wrong, as Johson gave birth to her second child.
Image credits: 12 On Your Side
“Out of nowhere, right before our anniversary, we were getting ready to go on a date for our anniversary, and I just had a gut feeling,” she told Virginia’s WWBT outlet.
“So, in January of ’24, I took a test. We found out we were pregnant with our second.”
What Johnson thought was a need to visit the loo turned out to be the appearance of her first child
Image credits: Christian Bowen/Unsplash (Not the actual image)
Then on September 9, 2025, she found herself in a hospital’s emergency department with an overwhelming back pain.
“So we go to the ER, they check me in. I can’t sit at this point. My back is k*lling me,” she told the outlet.
“I’m telling them it’s my back, but it’s now radiating to my front. They’re (the medical staff) thinking kidney stones or cysts.”
“I’m telling them it’s my back, but it’s now radiating to my front. They’re (the medical staff) thinking kidney stones or cysts.”
Image credits: 12 On Your Side
There, Johnson told the nurse that she needed to visit the loo.
Johnson says the birth of her third child was due to divine intervention
“I hurry over and I go, ’Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry if this is constipation. I feel like such a horrible person.’” But what was about to happen had nothing to do with Johnson’s digestive tract.
Image credits: 12 On Your Side
Said head belonged to a baby girl (now named Carlee Evangeline) weighing 7 pounds and 8 ounces and measuring 19 inches from head to toe.
Social media appears to be struggling with the idea of a woman never even suspecting she is pregnant
“Obviously, never give up hope and prayer. God steps into the storm, whether you realize it or not. He didn’t say there wasn’t going to be a storm, but he said he would stand beside you in it and don’t give up because clearly your body will reset.”
Image credits: Wesley Tingey/Unsplash (Not the actual image)
Social media, for the most part, is struggling to get its head around the anomaly.
In response to the story’s appearance on Facebook, one person wrote:
“How do you not know you are pregnant for 9 months?”
Another netizen thinks it is the result of women not paying attention to their bodies
Image credits: 12 On Your Side
“How can you not know you’re pregnant? Do women not pay any attention to their bodies? Sore breast, weight gain, and swelling! This is ridiculous!” declared another.
But some netizens are in the know, and they slammed those who doubted Johnson’s obliviousness leading up to her third child’s birth.
“It happens very frequently. A little research will help to educate you,” quipped one person harboring the sentiment.
Another person who experienced the same phenomena never even put on weight
A British healthcare worker by the name of Kayleigh Tilley is another statistic. She woke up bleeding on Christmas Eve 2024 and was rushed to the hospital.
There she discovered that not only was she eight months pregnant, but also in labor.
During these eight months, Tilley went out on a few girls’ nights and even excursions and activities of the more physical variety, like whitewater rafting.
One in 2,500 women only finds out about their pregnancies when they go into labor
The conditions affecting Tilley and Johnson are referred to as cryptic pregnancies.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, 1 in 475 go unnoticed until 20 weeks and, rarer still, 1 in 2,500 remain unknown until birth.
The medical outlet further notes that those most likely to experience the phenomenon include women with PCOS and mothers who recently gave birth (like Johnson), women in perimenopause (older than 40), women on birth control, and women who have never given birth before.
Some readers feel Johnson should have been more attuned to her body
