Reut Yosef, 27 from Rishon Lezion, gave birth to her firstborn son on a Saturday two weeks ago, only four days after discovering she is pregnant.
Reut, who is overweight, enrolled in a dieting program about four months ago, in a bid to reach a healthy weight before she and her husband start trying to have a baby.
However, despite a strict diet plan and the support of a dietitian, Reut failed to lose weight, and in fact gradually gained more and more pounds. Her husband Dror, 29, even blamed her of eating secretly and raiding the refrigerator at night.
Little Dvir (Photos: Dudu Azulay)
On June 8, the couple decided to take a home pregnancy test, which showed that Reut was pregnant. "I don't know why we decided to do it," said Dror. "It was some sort of a hunch, because we could see Reut wasn't losing weight, and remembered that two months ago she experienced some irregularity in her period. We assumed she was in her first trimester and scheduled a doctor's appointment."
Two days after taking the home test, the excited couple met with gynecologist. "He did an ultrasound and said that according to the size of the baby's head, I was in the 40th week," recounted Reut. "We turned white like in a cartoon. Our jaw literally dropped."
The following medical examination revealed that Reut was somewhere between week 35 to 38. In other words, she was already nine-month pregnant. On Thursday morning Reut was diagnosed with hypertension and the doctors were worried she might also be suffering from preeclampsia.
'Well padded mommy'
She was immediately sent to the Emergency Room at Assaf Harofeh Medical center near Tel Aviv and given an injection to induce labor. She went into the delivery room on Friday and gave birth to Dvir on Saturday, after a 26-hours exhausting delivery.
An amazing gift
Dror spoke of the nerve-wrecking anticipation for the birth. "We didn't even know whether it was a boy or a girl… they also couldn't tell us if the baby was healthy, because we didn't take any tests during the pregnancy. I was really worried."
Ever since the birth, said the couple, they have been forced to deal with family and friend who are sure this is all a big prank. "I'm considered a prankster among the guys, and all my friends told me, 'quit jerking our chain.' In every phone call I have to explain that this isn't a joke."
Asked how she missed the fact she was pregnant, Reut explained: "He was apparently a very quiet baby, and because I'm fat he was well-padded. He didn't kick and I didn't feel anything, maybe only something that resembles gas."
But despite the shock and the unexpected birth, the two seem overjoyed. "I never imagined I would have such a pregnancy that I wouldn't even feel. We weren't even trying to get pregnant now. We thought it'll happen in a year, a year and-a-half," said Reut. "When Dvir grows up," she added," I will tell him we got him as a gift, an amazing gift for our one year anniversary."