It’s not a myth. Sorry long story:

I am VERY in tune with my body. I’ve tracked my periods for YEARS…missed periods will always set off somethings wrong whether pregnant or not. So, my periods were like clockwork. 28 days, I was only 1 or 2 days late for 3 cycles out of 36 (3years). My last proper period was 2nd of November 21 I should have started my next cycle on the 30th, didn’t come so I took a PT, negative. Cool it’s on it’s way then. 3 days later still no period took another PT. This 1 was a very faint positive. Shocked but ok. Saw GP 2 days later took bloods AND negative. She said I might be going through a MC or it’s too early. If I haven’t started bleeding in 2 weeks we’ll test again.

Well during those 2 weeks, I started disliking certain foods that I LOVED, nausea vomiting fatigue. Emotionally crying over EVERYTHING (I’m not a cryer at all, I’ve never shed 1 tear at funerals kind of thing) so I knew something was up. Im healthy. I hardly get sick. So to have all these things happen at once started to make me see somethings wrong. I started having discharge in both nipples but they weren’t tender. I go back to GP because I haven’t bled at all. Do another blood test NEGATIVE again. I ask my GP, if there’s a possibility it could be a false neg she said no. I told her about my symptoms so she got a full blood work done. Prolactin, Oestrogen, progesterone, thyroid, FSH iron the whole 9 yards. Everything was normal, oestrogen was slightly higher than normal progesterone also slightly higher as well but both still within non pregnancy range. Prolactin normal for non-pregnant woman. She concluded that I was definitely NOT pregnant. I asked her for my results to be emailed.

I went and got a 2nd opinion from a GP I had seen from teenage years to adulthood. I had only changed to a new practice in 2020. But he KNEW me well. So I took my results with me. And I was looking at the whole result beforehand and 1 thing screamed at me. Everything is fine hormonally. All these hormones are responsible for periods and pregnancy. So when I saw my old GP 2 weeks later. I took my results in and I said to him. Hypothetically, looking at these results, would you say I should be having irregular periods? And he said actually no. Looking at these results, there’s nothing that suggests you should have anything wrong with your periods. (By this time a month had passed since my missed period) you know how regular I am, and I’ve never missed 2 periods EVER, so I asked why am I not getting my period?

I explained my symptoms, so he redid same bloods to see if there was a change. Again everything came back fine except, oestrogen had dramatically increased to a normal pregnancy, same as progesterone AND prolactin was within the pregnancy level as well, but I still failed hcg. He sent me for a scan. Turns out I was pregnant with twins. I was SHOCKED. He explained the hook effect to me and said that’s probably why the test is neg. So he diluted my urine, and still no hcg detected. Ran some tests and I wasn’t producing hcg AT ALL.

But the placenta ends up taking over HCG when it’s developed, so even if I’m not producing it each placenta will start to in the coming weeks. Tested for hcg at every month afterwards. Nothing at all. My dr was amazed. He read up a bit on cryptic pregnancy and some women start out no hcg, but test positive after 20 weeks. About 1 in 2500 pregnancies will go all the way to labour and birth with no hcg AT ALL leading to SURPRISE YOUR’RE PREGNANT AND DUE IN 5 MINUTES lol.

My dr said if it wasn’t for me being so in touch with my body, and also if it wasn’t twins I might not have had any symptoms. I may have not noticed at all and may have given birth unaware. The pic of my belly is at 37 weeks the day before I gave birth. So I didn’t get a huge twin belly, not much symptoms but just enough to question. Zero complications as well. My GP believes there’s a link between hcg and most common pregnancy symptoms. HCG is the hormone that “deactivates” things non-pregnant people need and “activates” things pregnant people and the baby need. I did have 2 period like bleeds as well 1 at 3 months and again at 7 months and I had light bleeding and spotting off and on too.

I gave birth to di/di twin boys on the 22nd of July. They were actually measuring at 33 weeks but since I caught it early on my dr knew that couldn’t be right. Because my dating scan was 9 weeks exactly. And that lined up with my LMP as well. If I was 33 weeks when I gave birth, my 1st scan would have showed nothing, or just a sac I would have only been 5 weeks. So, yes some cryptic pregnancies may potentially go for longer but I don’t think years maybe a month or 2 at most…somehow my boys progression slowed by a month. I’m not talking just size either. Development of some organs matched up to 33 weeks as well. But they were healthy happy and no nicu time!

It’s rare to catch a cryptic pregnancy as early as I did so there’s not a whole lot of cases at all. But my advice to women who think they might be but testing negative. Trust your gut, and also track EVERYTHING. Get bloods and ultrasounds done. If your dr doesn’t it’s your right to know. And in the event it IS a false neg YOU NEED PRENATAL CARE. It’s better to do an ultrasound and find you aren’t pregnant then your dr to ignore you and you’re in labour months later surprised. I had to think of it as…if these babies were out and I knew something was wrong but dr’s would say nothing is…would I just ignore my intuition or would I fight for babies health? Same thing while pregnant. You have to fight for your unborn baby.

Also 1 thing I did do as well before my 1st scan was get a mental health assessment. I wanted to be ABSOLUTELY sure it wasn’t all in my head or a phantom pregnancy. My dr said I’m pretty mentally stable but he referred me anyway.

Cryptic Pregnancy....