SHE woke up at 6am with what she thought was sharp abdominal pain.
But when she dashed to the toilet, she gave birth to a baby boy instead.
According to Zheng Huiwen, who was already the mother of two young children, she had not even known she was pregnant.
She had been having her regular menses, she told The New Paper on Sunday in a telephone interview.
She had been shocked, the 25-year-old maintained, to look down and see 'small legs and hands moving in the toilet bowl'.
Luckily, little Weicheng - born premature - is fine now.
But the memory of those 30 fateful minutes on Nov 2 still makes his mother shudder.
Speaking from her home in Ayer Itam, Penang, Madam Zheng said she had not experienced such symptoms of pregnancy as missed menstruation, morning sickness or even food cravings.
But women can sometimes mistake spotting, which occurs during pregnancy, for menstruation, said gynaecologist SC Yeo. (See report facing page.)
IN THE DARK
Madam Zheng said: 'Don't ask me how I didn't know I was pregnant. I just didn't know.
'I was totally in the dark about it.'
And she would know the signs, since she already has a four-year-old son and a 21-month-old daughter.
Madam Zheng said she had been taking contraceptive pills for 10 months as she and her husband had not wanted another baby yet.
'I only stopped taking the pill in April last year,' she said.
Unknown to her, Weicheng was already about three months old in her womb.
Added Madam Zheng: 'Moreover, I was having my regular menses and my last day of period was actually on Oct 27 (a week before she delivered). So it seemed really impossible for me to give birth barely a week later.'
One thing she did notice was that she had been gaining weight, though not much - only about 5kg.
Otherwise, 'I did not feel nauseous and even though I put on some weight, I thought it was normal as I was not never slim in the first place.'
So she continued riding her motorcycle to work each day, clad in jeans and blouse and T-shrit.
'My neighbours have jokingly said that the (contraceptive) pills I was taking were probably expired,' she said.
Madam Zheng is a cashier at a wholesale fruits centre while her husband, Mr Lin Cangfu, whom she married in 2002, is a sales promoter for toys.
He also told The New Paper on Sunday he had no idea Madam Zheng was pregnant. Because of his work, he said, he travels frequently.
The family live with Madam Zheng's parents in a condominium.
Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary the day before, she recalled.
She said: 'I thought I had eaten something wrong and was going to have a bad case of diarrhoea. I rushed to the toilet and experienced a strange sensation.'
BABY IN BOWL
She peered into the toilet bowl and saw a lumpy black mass.
She did a double take.
'The second time I looked again, I saw something that looked like feet sticking out from inside of the toilet bowl!,' she recalled.
In that instant, she realised that it was an infant.
'I quickly reached down and used my hands to scoop my baby out of the toilet... still seated, I stretched out to open the door and screamed, 'Got baby! Got baby!''
For a minute, her parents and husband were stunned into silence at the sight of Madam Zheng cuddling a baby.
Said Madam Zheng: 'I could see that everyone was frightened and they were thinking, how could I have a baby when I was not even pregnant.'
Then the baby began crying.
And mayhem erupted.
The question everyone was asking: Where had the baby come from?
Her mother, Madam Koh Lai Ying, told The New Paper on Sunday: 'Everything was so confusing.
'Huiwen's eyes were all rolled up and she was staring at the ceiling, her whole body was shivering.
'I even thought she was having epilepsy.'
She rushed out of the apartment and started banging on the doors of their neighbours.
One of the first neighbours to run to the house and witness everything was Madam Xu Qinghua.
Madam Xu said: 'The family was really too shocked to do much. I even had to help them call for an ambulance.
'None of us could tell Huiwen was pregnant. Even the day before she delivered, she was still chatting with us after dinner, like every other day.
'We were all sitting and squatting about at the common corridor. How can a heavily pregnant woman do something like that without difficulty?'
Now the whole condominium is abuzz with the news of the 'miraculous delivery'.
Neighbours have given Weicheng the nickname of 'tin gong gia' (meaning 'Heaven's son' in Hokkien).
Said Madam Zheng: 'He weighed 2.74kg and I was told that was the average weight for a full-term newborn baby.'
Weicheng now weighs about 4.5kg.
One fortunate thing, said Madam Zheng, was that 'the doctor has done all the necessary blood tests during our three-day stay in the hospital and so far, everything is okay.
'But we have also gone back for regular check-ups.'
Despite the shock and the question marks, she added, 'we're glad that we've been blessed with Weicheng. Miracle baby or not, he's our dear little one.
'It's not everyday that someone goes to the toilet and leaves with a baby kicking and alive in her arms,' she said.
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NOT ALL HAVE SYMPTOMS: DOC
A WOMAN can be pregnant and not be aware of it, doctors say.
Not all pregnant women experience nausea or food cravings, said Dr SC Yeo, a gynaecologist.
What appears to be menstruation could be spotting, a light bleeding similar to a woman's period that can occur at any time during pregnancy.
One common cause of bleeding is 'decidual bleeding', where the lining of the uterus not yet covered by the developing baby, placenta and membranes continues to bleed each month.
But this is not considered dangerous to mother or child.
On the contraceptive pills Madam Zheng had taken, Dr Yeo said she likely conceived 'around the time she stopped taking the pills. Also, cases of women getting pregnant while on the pill are not really uncommon.'
Women who lead active lifestyles can miss foetal movements when 'not keeping a lookout for a baby's kickings'.
Last October, Amanda Brisendine of Maple Valley, USA, was 37 weeks pregnant when she gave birth to a healthy boy.
She recalled: 'I had normal periods, no morning sickness. I was working right up until three days before I popped.'
Source
I SAW SMALL FEET IN LOO 
