A 28-year-old woman who didn’t know she was pregnant was shocked to welcome a baby on Christmas Day.
Melanie Smith told ABC News that for years she didn’t think she could have a child. Smith said she was told by a doctor nearly a decade ago that she likely couldn’t carry a child because of irregularities with her uterus.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 25, she experienced stomach pains and initially thought it might be constipation. When the pain didn’t subside, she decided to go to a local hospital in Waukegan, Illinois, with her husband, Donovan O’Dell.
“[The pain] kept kind of growing in intensity and frequency,” Smith recalled. “By, like, 3:30 [a.m.] I was like, ‘OK, it’s time to go to the hospital. Something’s very wrong.’ And then [we] got to the hospital, and they were just like, ‘We’re pretty sure you’re pregnant.'”
Smith said that about two hours later, she and O’Dell welcomed baby Vincent Antonio O’Dell, who weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce at birth.
Vincent is the first child for both Smith and her husband, she said.
Smith said prior to experiencing stomach pain and giving birth, she did not have other telltale signs of pregnancy aside from back pain, which she chalked up to a flare-up from cold weather as a result of a back surgery she had back in 2020.
She said she was told by her doctors that she’d had what is known as a cryptic pregnancy, and that Vincent had been “hiding” behind her spine during the pregnancy.
The family of three is gradually adjusting to a whole new life together.
“[I’m] still [in] a little bit of a shock, but I’m doing great, and my son’s just awesome,” Smith said.