We come across these stories of mothers who had no idea they were pregnant just before delivery and often wonder how in the world that is possible. After all, it is another human growing inside of their own body. When Mandie Smith woke up last Thursday with severe and unrelenting pain, she thought it was some medical issue she would go see a doctor about. She soon found out that the discomfort she was feeling had to do with her fourth son Harrison, who she was about to deliver.

"Everybody has been like 'What?'" Smith told WSAZ. "We've been texting people showing the baby, and they were like 'I was with you yesterday. You didn't look pregnant.' Nobody believes it. Everybody's in shock."

In the nine months leading up to Harrison’s birth, Smith said she did not experience any substantial weight gain. She also said she does not have normal menstrual cycles, so there was very little indicating a fetus growing inside of her. Smith and her husband, J.R. Smith, said they had no problem detecting her first three pregnancies. While rare, doctors said Smith’s situation is not unheard of.

"Pregnancy usually has signs that are loud and clear," Dr. Allan Chamberlain, with St. Mary's Medical Center in West Virginia, told WSAZ, "but every year, more than 1,000 women in this country have babies before even knowing they were pregnant."