21-year-old British tourist visits hospital for ‘stomach bug’ in Australia – Gives birth hours later

A 21-year-old British backpacker who thought she had a stomach bug was left stunned when doctors told her she was in labour and about to give birth.

Hattie Sheppard had been travelling along Australia’s east coast with her boyfriend Bailey Cheadle (22), enjoying beach parties and boat trips during a six-month adventure. But in July last year, the trip took an unexpected turn when she began suffering painful stomach cramps.

At first, she blamed a bug and took two paracetamol tablets. When the pain worsened and settled on the right side of her abdomen, the university student feared appendicitis and went to Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland.

An ultrasound revealed the real cause.

“I remember turning and looking at the doctor’s face when he was doing the ultrasound, and he just had the most confused face I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“I asked him what was wrong, and he said there’s a baby. I thought this was impossible as I’m on the pill.

“And he said, ‘no there’s a baby coming now, and you’re in labor’.”

Sheppard said she “didn’t believe him at first,” describing the moment as the “most sickening and frightening thing I’ve ever experienced in my whole life”.

Just 10 hours later, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl weighing about 6.4lb. The couple named her Isla-Grace Cheadle.

Sheppard said she had experienced no typical pregnancy symptoms and had no visible bump. She later learned her placenta had been positioned at the front of her stomach, blocking the baby’s movements. Isla-Grace had been growing near her spine, which explained the lack of a bump.

Although it sounds rare, so-called cryptic pregnancies are more common than many realise.

In Australia, around one in 475 pregnancies are not discovered until after 20 weeks. About one in 2,500 are only identified at the point of labour. With roughly 5,800 to 5,900 babies born each week in the country, that equates to around two such cases weekly.

Sheppard also has Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition affecting the thyroid that can cause weight loss, dizziness and fatigue, and sometimes make it harder to conceive.

“With my Graves’ disease, it’s a struggle to put on weight, so I had actually had my [medication] dosage increased, and I thought it was working,” she explained.

“I used to be quite underweight, but I had got back into eating healthy and going to the gym, so I was actively trying to put on weight.

“So the weight gain I had, I thought was intentional.”

In the months before giving birth, she had gone on a high-speed slingshot ride and celebrated her 21st birthday on a rented boat: “Me and Bailey rented a boat out for my 21st birthday in September. We were jumping off the boat into the water, drinking and it was a standard 21st birthday. Exactly two weeks before she was born, it was New Year’s Eve. My boyfriend and I were on the beach watching fireworks, and we’d been out before that.”

The couple are now preparing to return home to Doncaster, north-west of London, with more than souvenirs from their gap year.

“I honestly could not be happier,” Sheppard said.

“It’s the strangest thing that could have happened, but it feels normal.”