A New Zealand mom has opened up about what it was like to find out she was pregnant right when she saw her baby’s head between her legs.
19-year-old Emma Crofts-Wilson didn’t know what was going on when she began feeling pains in her stomach and lower back, but she certainly didn’t think she was pregnant.
In the months leading up to the birth, Emma noticed that she was having cravings, but just chalked everything up to her appetite.
“I noticed that I was eating more, but not a lot more than usual. Apart from the occasional KFC craving, which isn’t normally like me, I ate a very stable diet,” she said, according to The Daily Mail. “I used to go out drinking on the weekends with my friends, but I noticed that I didn’t want it anymore. I felt sick just by looking at it.”
Although Emma was left in excruciating pain at 2:45 in the morning, she still had no idea that her “stomach ache” was actually labor.
Then, suddenly, Emma felt the urge to push.
“I was home alone and it was terrifying. I didn’t even scream. I think I was just in shock,” she recalled. “When she was born, I used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut her umbilical cord and then I wrapped her in a towel and made sure she was safe and breathing.”
Being a teenager, Emma’s first thought was that she was going to be in a lot of trouble with her parents.
“Then I texted my mum something along the lines of, ‘please don’t be mad or angry, but I’ve just had a baby. I don’t know what to do,” she said. “She called me and said, ‘you better be joking!’ but of course, I wasn’t. While I waited for her to get home, all I could think to do was to clean up the blood. Doctors later told me that I’d lost about two units (approx one litre).”
10 minutes after her family rushed home to be by her side, Emma was taken to the hospital by paramedics.
At the hospital, Emma delivered her placenta and underwent surgery to repair a tear, according to The Daily Mail.
Baby Hannah-Marie was declared perfectly healthy at just over 6 pounds, and 11 months later, Emma couldn’t imagine her life without her baby girl.
