A 19-year-old has given birth to a healthy child just 45 minutes after realizing her pregnancy.
When Emmalouise Leggate woke up on July 17, 2018, she noticed a bump in her belly. It was when she rushed to the hospital with her grandmother, only to deliver a baby in the hospital car park.
The teen says she was taking contraceptive pills at the time and had no idea about her pregnancy.
Leggate adds that she had a flat belly until the day she welcomed her daughter, Ciara Louise Lamont. Thankfully, the baby was full term and healthy at the time of birth.
The teen didn’t realize that she was pregnant because the baby had been positioned in her stomach further towards back rather than at the front.
Though she was rushed to the hospital by her 63-year-old grandmother Louise Ford, the labor was over so quickly that the pair never entered the building.
However, the baby was born healthy at a weight of 7lbs 12oz.
Ciara, who’s now eight months old, is the second child of Leggate with her partner Sean Lamont.
“I was really shocked afterwards. It didn’t feel real,” Leggate, from Glasgow, said. “My nanna was in that much shock that she didn’t want to believe it. We were really lucky she was okay.
“I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test, I had no symptoms, nothing. Nothing at all.
“The doctors couldn’t explain why I didn’t have a bump. They just told me that she must have been sitting in my lower back and that it is quite common.
“People tend to find out around their 20-week scan once the baby starts to kick, but Ciara never kicked. I never felt her do it.
“I never had any morning sickness or cravings either, nothing like that.
“At the start [of using the pill] I was bleeding a little bit, but then my periods just stopped altogether so I just thought that it was the pill.”
Leggate continued: “I had no bump. I had put on a bit of weight, so my mom was suggesting we go out walking and do different things to burn it off because I kept going on about my weight.
“The weight was across my full body, more in my arms, legs and face than anywhere else. My stomach never grew.
“But I gave birth to Ciara. It was a really quick labor. It was quite a neat bump. It was very small and all at the top – I’m guessing she’d just turned.”
When Leggate noticed her bump, she was rushed to the hospital by her quick-thinking grandma, who’s unfortunately passed away last year.
Though the teen is overjoyed to have another child in addition to her first baby Caoimhe, she has given up on the pills and has instead opted for the coil.
“It was the best thing that could have happened,” Leggate said. “But we’re having no more. No more surprise babies, thank you.
“It’s changed the way I think about contraception. I ended up going on the coil just after Ciara. I’m safe just now. I take pregnancy tests nowadays too just in case.”