A woman who mistook labor pains for a bad belly ache, has revealed how she ended up giving birth after mistaking her labor pains for constipation.
Marla McEntire, from Georgia, had no knowledge that she carried the baby for 40 weeks despite being on birth control.
The 34-year-old said that she had missed just one period during that time but dismissed it after taking a pregnancy test that came out as negative.
But she ended up giving birth to her five-pound, 18-inch son – who she has since named Atlas Cohen – while on the toilet.
McEntire’s pregnancy even went undetected by a doctor she visited while struggling with stomach pain in January — just one month before she gave birth.
The doctor chalked McEntire’s discomfort up to having her gallbladder removed at 23, which often makes her constipated.
So on February 27, McEntire assumed her abdominal pain was from being backed up.
Marla took to TikTok to share her story, telling followers: ‘I’m 34 years old, I’ve never had a pregnancy scare before.
‘I got pregnant last May and I never showed, my stomach was squishy, my belly button didn’t pop out, no morning sickness, I never felt a kick – nothing.’
Around January, I started having some hip pain and some stomach issues so I went to a chiropractor and went to a doctor and no one caught the fact that there was a baby in there.
Speaking about when Atlas was born, she said: ‘That night I thought I was constipated.
‘I sent my dad to the store to get me laxatives and I went back and forth to the bathroom about five times.
‘And then on the fifth time is when Atlas came.’
Marla, who has been on birth control since she was 18, continues: ‘So I had just had Atlas in the toilet, I looked down and see that he’s alive and I yell for my dad.
‘My dad comes in there and helps me get the baby out of the toilet because obviously he is still attached at this point and it’s a little hard for me to get him out.’
McEntire’s dad, Kevin, whom she shares a home with, had just returned from a four-day vacation on Amelia Island, Fla., to find his daughter ‘crying and screaming in pain,’ he recalled.
‘Every 20 minutes, I would hear her in a lot of pain. Then it got a little shorter between distances…Now I know it was contractions — but at the time, we didn’t have a clue,’ Kevin said.
She later told the New York Post: ‘I looked down in the toilet, and he is in there with water up to his ears and right under his chin, just looking back up at me, like, “Are you going to get me out of here mom?”‘
Her father, Kevin, immediately called 911 for advice and they began talking him through the next steps.
She explains: ‘The EMTs are like “okay you need to tie the umbilical cord off” but he really doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, so he takes a chip clip – like the clips you keep your potato chip bags closed with – and clips my umbilical cord with that until the EMTs get there.
‘We live in the middle of nowhere so it takes about 20 minutes for this to happen – and at this point I’m just spread eagle on the floor with my dad right there – and I’m like “what is happening right now.”‘
‘There was so much to process at one time.’
Marla said the bathroom ‘looked like a murder scene’ and that the father-daughter duo were trying to stay as calm as possible.
They were eventually taken to hospital for check ups – and both mother and baby are doing well.
Marla has since told the publication: ‘There are still some issues with the paternity of the father that I’m dealing with.’
The new mother said that she is grateful for her family and friends who banded together to help buy baby equipment and supplies needed at such short notice.
