Most women can’t wrap their minds around going through an entire pregnancy without even realizing it was happening.

Carla Collazo and her boyfriend have been together for 13 years and actively trying to conceive for the last 3. But at 37-year-old and with a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome, doctors told her it would be very hard to get pregnant. The Deleware woman had all but given up.

“Like many women, I’ve always known that I wanted to be a mom. That was never a question — but getting there was so much harder than I ever imagined. I’ve helped raise my sister’s and brother’s kids, so a baby of my own was something that I’ve always wanted. But despite knowing how badly I wanted this, I could never get pregnant,” she told a writer for Cafe Mom’s The Stir who wrote her story.

She had taken pregnancy tests over the last few months – all came back negative. Yet, she was pregnant. But there were no symptoms except for swollen feet, which she easily attributed to her job in a factory standing for hours at a time.

Collazo didn’t even gain any weight.

Meanwhile, she was preparing for a life without children.

“I started to give up on myself and lost all hope. I even sold my house in June because I knew I didn’t need the room.”

But on a Sunday, August 25th while she was visiting her boyfriend, something felt wrong. She began bleeding and cramping and assumed she had gotten her period at an inopportune time.

He wanted to take her to the hospital, but she was ready to go to the laundromat and wash her stained clothing!

After taking some Tylenol and having some ginger ale, the pain got more intense. Since she didn’t have health insurance, she didn’t want to risk an expensive trip to the hospital.

Instead, she had him drop her off at her sister-in-law’s house and the two women would decide what to do.

Collazo’s boyfriend told Alexandra Santos that she needed to see a doctor when he dropped her off.

She took a shower to see if that helped but couldn’t do anything except sit on the toilet because of the pain. But she assumed that it was an ovarian cyst or blood clot and felt the urge to push it out.

She still had no idea what was really going on, even when her water broke. How could she know? Pregnancy tests were negative and she didn’t even think she could get pregnant! There were no symptoms up until that point.

When she put her hand down to feel what was coming out of her, she felt the baby’s head, but it didn’t register. She panicked and screamed for her sister-in-law.

Neither woman was prepared for what happened next – who would be?!

“I pushed again and I somehow had a placenta in my hand. None of it felt real. It was all happening so fast, and I didn’t know what to do. In that moment, I was terrified to look in the toilet. I had the placenta in my hand and a baby in the toilet. I was just absolutely terrified. My sister-in-law was on the phone with 911 and she was scared to look too. She thought I had a stillbirth and didn’t want to upset me,” she explained months later.

The baby only weighed about a little over 2 pounds, but they heard her squeal.

“I was just in shock—just in shock,” the new mom said.

We bet!

As Collazo recovered from what had just happened, Santos followed instructions she received over the phone while waiting for the paramedics. She retrieved the baby and put it on Collazo’s chest and covered them in clean towels. Santos tied off the umbilical cord with a shoestring.

“I tied it on the umbilical cord as tight as I could,” Santos told Fox 29. “She was just so precious. She was looking at me and I was looking in her eyes.”

Dramatic photos from that day (including a selfie!) show the unimaginable scene.

It’s hard to imagine going from wanting a baby but unable to have one to suddenly giving birth by surprise one day. Luckily, the couple was more than happy to welcome their little girl.

“I just knew how much she cried and prayed for something like that,” Santos said.

Collazo and Santos Facetimed the new surprise grandmother from the scene – she was shocked, to say the least, and thought it was a prank until she saw the paramedics.

Collazo was taken to Christiana Hospital where doctors told her the baby – who was named Amoura Rose – was born 6 weeks early and would be placed in the NICU.

Her boyfriend rushed there to be with her.

Once everyone got their wits about them and realized the newborn girl would be ok, they were overjoyed. After all, it’s what the couple had been dreaming of – they just weren’t exactly prepared.

Unbelievably, Collazo’s most recent negative pregnancy test was in June, just weeks before her surprise delivery. She only took it because her boyfriend said she seemed more tired than usual.

But she hadn’t gained weight and was still getting her period!

Only one time did she ever feel movement in her stomach and assumed it was gas.

Luckily Amoura was perfectly healthy, she just needed a little over 4 weeks in the NICU to gain some weight.

Collazo went back to work as a receptionist in a chiropractor’s office two weeks after giving birth. But while it was hard, she needed something to take her mind off of the helpless feeling of having a baby in the NICU.

She visited her daughter every night while she waited for her to gain enough wait to go home.

After having given up on her dream, Collazo became a mother overnight and was understandably overwhelmed.

But she says her daughter is perfect and now wants to encourage other women with polycystic ovary syndrome not to give up if they want to have a baby.

Be sure to scroll down to see an interview with both women about the story that’s hard to believe.

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Source: Fox 29 Philadelphia, Fox LA, The Stir