Ebony Stevenson, 18, was suffering from headaches, then started having seizures on the bathroom floor in early December.
The UK college student’s mother called emergency services—and within three hours, she had her granddaughter in her arms, despite both herself and her daughter having no idea the teen was pregnant.
Stevenson was put into an induced coma and woke up after four days, at which point the newborn was placed on her chest.
“It sounds awful now, but I asked them to take her away as I was so confused and sure they’d made a mistake,” the teen tells the BBC.
After her mother explained what had happened, Stevenson took the infant back, the Independent reports. She says she was “confused” and “scared,” but that “it was a beautiful moment.”
Doctors say a series of events came together to make the strange situation possible.
Stevenson has a rare condition known as uterus didelphys: She has two wombs, one of which continued to menstruate as her baby grew, unbeknownst to her, in the other one, which was positioned toward her back—allowing the pregnancy to go unnoticed, as Stevenson never got a “baby bump.”
She also didn’t get morning sickness. But she developed pre-eclampsia, which caused the headaches and seizures, and upon her arrival at the hospital doctors quickly realized what was going on and did an emergency caesarean to deliver the little girl Stevenson would go on to name Elodie. She weighed 7lbs, 10oz, leading doctors to believe she was full-term.
“I worried I wouldn’t bond with my daughter because I had no time to get my head around her arrival, but I think she’s amazing,” Stevenson says now. “It’s an absolute miracle.”
Stevenson’s mother concurs, noting that many women with uterus didelphys struggle to conceive or carry a baby to term: “The doctors said that Elodie was a miracle baby.” (Unaware she was pregnant, this woman gave birth on a sidewalk.)
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