By the time 26-year-old Megan Isherwood started vomiting blood and clutching her right side in agony, she was convinced something inside her had gone badly wrong. Paramedics agreed, suspecting appendicitis as they rushed her to hospital, and a recent pregnancy test coming back negative only seemed to rule out any other explanation. Days later, she was holding a baby boy she never knew she was carrying.
Her story sounds like urban legend, yet it is documented across multiple medical checks, scans and hospital notes, and it underlines how even modern healthcare can miss a pregnancy that hides in plain sight. It also shows how quickly a suspected surgical emergency can turn into a delivery room sprint, with a newborn fighting sepsis and a stunned mother trying to catch up emotionally with what her body has just done.
The day “appendicitis” turned into labor
Megan Isherwood woke up one morning in Sep with a sharp pain in her right side that kept getting worse, the kind of pain that makes people think of a bursting appendix. As the cramps intensified, she began vomiting blood, a symptom that pushed the situation from worrying to urgent and led paramedics to treat her as a likely appendicitis case on the way to hospital, a sequence later detailed in sourced reports. At 26, she did not see herself as someone on the brink of an unplanned delivery, and the emergency team did not either.
Part of that confidence came from a pregnancy test she had taken shortly before, which had come back negative and seemed to close the door on that possibility. According to coverage of her case, Megan had no obvious bump and no classic late-pregnancy symptoms that might have tipped her off. So when doctors initially focused on her abdomen and talked about scans to check for appendicitis, everyone in the room was working from the same assumption: this was a surgical problem, not a maternity one.
A hidden pregnancy, a surprise baby boy and a fight with sepsis
That assumption did not last long once imaging and examinations started to raise questions. As clinicians dug deeper, they realized Megan was not dealing with an inflamed appendix at all but was in late pregnancy and effectively on the brink of giving birth. One detailed account notes that Megan Isherwood, 26, in with suspected appendicitis after that negative test, only for staff to pivot rapidly once they realized she was in labor. Within a short window, she went from patient awaiting a possible CT scan to a mother being prepped to deliver.
The baby boy arrived small but very real, weighing 4.6 lbs, a detail highlighted in coverage that shows just how far along the pregnancy actually was by the time anyone spotted it. One report describes how Megan is now “madly in love” with her son, with images credited to Megan Isherwood / capturing a tiny newborn who had clearly arrived earlier and smaller than expected. For Megan, the emotional whiplash was intense: she had gone in bracing for surgery and woke up to a new name, a new face and a new responsibility.
The medical roller coaster did not stop at the delivery room doors. After the birth, Megan and her son were transferred to another hospital, where they were told that both she and the baby, named Jaxson, had an infection and were diagnosed with sepsis. According to one account, there she was were seriously ill, a terrifying twist for a woman who had not even known she was pregnant days earlier. Both ultimately made a full recovery after treatment, but the diagnosis underlined how high the stakes had been from the moment she started vomiting blood at home.
How a negative test, missed signs and a quiet pregnancy lined up
Stories like Megan’s often get dismissed as “how could she not know,” yet the details of her case show how a series of small factors can line up to hide a pregnancy. She had taken a test that came back negative, she did not have a pronounced bump, and her day-to-day symptoms were subtle enough that she did not connect them to carrying a baby. One report on her experience notes that she genuinely believed she was dealing with a stomach issue until the pain and vomiting escalated. When that is the baseline, it is not surprising that paramedics and doctors initially chased an abdominal diagnosis.
Medical staff did not ignore her symptoms; they followed a logical path based on what they saw and what she told them. They suspected appendicitis, discussed imaging and then changed course as new information came in, including the realization that she was in active labor. A more granular account of the emergency notes that Megan Isherwood awoke with severe right-sided pain and soon began vomiting blood, which understandably pushed clinicians toward an urgent surgical workup. Only when examinations and scans pointed elsewhere did the team realize they were dealing with a hidden pregnancy that had reached the finish line.
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