“It’s not a virus, I’m about to give birth”: the denial of pregnancy of a 42-year-old woman

Until the baby’s head came out, Valentina and Giacomo didn’t realize they were going to be parents for the first time.

Thinking that his partner had caught a serious case of the flu, Giacomo went to the pharmacy to buy her some medicine. But shortly after returning home, she gave birth to a baby girl. Valentina, a 42-year-old Italian waitress, simply denied her pregnancy. The events took place in Altopascio, in Tuscany (Italy), this Wednesday, January 15, as reported in Corriere Fiorentino.

“It’s a seasonal illness, it will pass soon”

Seeing that his partner was feeling worse and worse, Giacomo, a 43-year-old pizza maker, went to the pharmacy on January 15 around 6 a.m. After describing the symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea to the pharmacist, the latter, thinking it was the flu, reassured him: “It’s a seasonal illness, it will pass soon. »

Once he returned home, he gave the medication to Valentina, but it did not take effect. Then, at one point, the forty-year-old got on the bed and said to her partner: “It’s not a virus, I’m about to give birth!” » “But stop, this is not the time to joke,” said the pizza maker.

“This little body came out of itself”

After turning to the side, Valentina spread her legs and a small head full of hair came out. “Everything went black, for a moment I didn’t see or understand anything,” said the man who had just become a father, adding: “This little body came out on its own, with the umbilical cord, without making any noise. noise, so much so that I feared for a moment that it was a dead fetus. » “All I could say was that I was going to call 118, and that’s when the baby started crying. There, I understood that everything was fine,” he continued.

Giacomo then called the emergency services, who “guided him by telephone until the ambulance arrived”. As there were no clothes provided for the baby, the father took a towel to swaddle him in order to keep him warm.

The little girl, who is doing well, weighed 3,350 kg and measured 51 cm when she was born. Once at the Lucca hospital, the parents had to quickly find a first name for him. “The nurses asked us and we had to decide in an instant. We hope we did it well,” underlined the father.

They Mistook “Belly Swelling” for Gluten Intolerance

Valentina and Giacomo were also very grateful to their neighbors, who mobilized to provide them with help. “At a time when we constantly read stories of neighborhood quarrels, even very violent ones, we are lucky to have extraordinary people at our side. They have already put our house in order and provided us with the first clothes for Michela,” said the baby’s father.

As for how this maternity could have gone so unnoticed, Giacomo explained to our Italian colleagues that a few months earlier, his companion began to have “swelling of the stomach”, but the doctor put this down to a probable gluten intolerance “since the symptom manifested itself mainly after Valentina had eaten products such as bread and pasta”. The absence of menstruation of the forty-year-old did not worry the couple either due to an “often irregular” menstrual cycle.

When the new parents told their relatives and friends the news, “no one” believed them. “My nephew, after seeing a photo of the little girl, asked me: ‘But is she yours?’ », recounted Giacomo who humorously retorted to his nephew: “No, she arrived with Amazon! »