Maternity leave wasn’t necessary for a woman who returned to work hours after giving birth to a baby she never knew she was pregnant with.
Under the Tiktok handle @bkillvh, a woman named Britt shocked viewers when she shared her experience. Britt was seven and a half months pregnant and had no idea.
“POV: You admit yourself into the ER for stomach pain after work. And get told that you’re in labor after 7.5 months of not knowing,” she wrote in the video’s caption.
Her TikTok has now been viewed over 2.8 million times.
To explain her shock, Britt included several pictures in the video that showed she had no visible baby bump — even on the day that she gave birth.
According to the New York Post, Britt had no reason to suspect she was pregnant. Her periods had always been irregular, and her weight consistently stayed between 110 and 115 pounds throughout the pregnancy.
Still, some TikTok users questioned how Britt was unaware.
In response, Britt shared that the symptoms she did experience, which included “stomach twitches” and “gas,” were common occurrences in her prepregnancy.
She also added that she has anxiety and depression, and that she isn’t always totally in tune with her body.
On the day that she gave birth, Britt left work with a stomachache. She had no idea that she would be returning as a mother.
Within hours after giving birth to her daughter, Britt discharged herself from the hospital and returned to work the next day.
“My daughter was born a little bit before 2 a.m.,” she explained in the video. “I was discharged a little bit before 6 a.m. And my shift started at 10:30 or 11 a.m.”
Britt explained she didn’t tell her manager exactly what happened, only that she had gone to the emergency room because she “wasn’t feeling good.”
“I gave my manager a note that was like, ‘I’m not going to be here for my next few shifts,’ and I just stopped going to work because ‘I have more important stuff going on,’” she said. “The words ‘I had a baby’ could not come out of my mouth. It was a movie scene to me.”
In another video, the new mom addressed comments of people asking how she still went to work the next day.
Britt said she “couldn’t process any pain” since she was in “shock,” so her body reacted as if it were a normal day.
“Shock and trauma are real, it’s very, very real,” she said.
Britt admitted that she may have missed other indicators, but things like the death of her dog and seasonal depression made her feel out of touch with her body.
Most of the viewers sympathized with Britt and even shared their stories of similar experiences.
While Brit’s story was unique to her, “cryptic pregnancies” aren’t uncommon.
Recently TikTok user Vivian Wise Ruizvelasco shocked the world after posting a video saying she gave birth in a club. Like Britt, she didn’t realize she was pregnant until she went into labor.
Britt and Vivian’s videos are proof that there is certainly more than one way to experience pregnancy.
