A Surprise Baby for a Teenage Dancer
Jodie Smith, a 17-year-old dancer, had only a few hours’ pregnancy. No, she had been bearing the baby all through the proper time, but she was unaware of the glory – until labor came on, but even then she mistook it for stomach cramps.
The story goes as follows: the teenager began experiencing stomach discomfort and pains late last Monday, so her mother, Lesley, 47, had her transported to a hospital first thing Tuesday morning. On examining the patient, doctors at A&E discovered her pains were caused by pregnancy at the last stage.
Within hours, Miss Smith was delivered of a son, while her flummoxed mother was shopping for baby things hurriedly.
The baby, named Jack Arthur, came into this world on July 23, weighing 8lbs.
His mother said that she hadn’t been growing anything like a baby bump, so the idea of a pregnancy hadn’t even occurred to her. She comes from Carleton Glen, West Yorkshire.
Miss Smith’s mother described her daughter as a busy girl, attending college, keen on dancing, going to work and gym. She had been looking slender all the way and had no complaints. Therefore, both ladies are “a bit shell-shocked,” but the new mother is, according to Mrs. Smith, is happy and keeps smiling.
She and her 43-year-old husband, Michael, were out on Monday evening, and their daughter was at her boyfriend’s place when she started feeling bad and decided to go back home. Consulted by phone, Mrs. Smith told her daughter to take some paracetamol.
Nevertheless, the pains hadn’t ceased, and Jodie’s brother gave their mom another call. Jodie’s pain was becoming worse, and at about 1 a.m. she had to wake her parents up to take care of her. Mrs. Smith dialed the on-call GP who referred her to the Wakefield walk-in clinic, but in Jodie’s sate it was out of the question. So her parents drove her to Pontefract Hospital.
Almost immediately she was diagnosed as pregnant and in labor and taken over to Pinderfields in Wakefield, where her baby was born before the night was through.
Since there was no ante-natal care, nobody knew how pregnancy had been progressing and how far it had gone, but the midwives are unanimous that the baby is definitely full-term, possibly even overdue a week or two. They said it still takes some time to sink in!
Jack is perfectly healthy. His father, Danny Yeoman, Jodie’s 19-year-old boyfriend, is still overcome by the news. His mother, who had passed her A-levels recently, means to go on studying dancing at college.
The boy’s grandmother, who ransacked shops from 6 to 7 in the morning, shared that now that Jack Arthur is with them, the family has five living generations! Everybody is overjoyed at the new arrival, although right now they are not sure whether they had taken it in properly!
