Half-marathon runner's back pain actually surprise pregnancy labor

DULUTH, Minn.A runner with unbearable back pain was in for a surprise when she found out the root of her ailment was a baby ready to enter the world.

Trish Staine, 33, of Duluth, Minn. says she had no idea she was pregnant before Monday's surprise birth. For one thing, her husband had previously underwent a vasectomy. The mother of three, who had been training for a half-marathon, said she hadn't gained any weight or felt fetal movement in the months before.

"I said 'no, no, that's impossible,' " Staine said Wednesday from her Duluth hospital room.

"I definitely thought I was done having kids," she joked. Staine and her husband, John, have a daughter, 7, and a son, 11. She's also stepmother to John's three boys, ages 17, 19 and 20.

Staine said she ran for about two hours Sunday in preparation for the Garry Bjorklund half-marathon on June 22.

"I had a sore back Sunday evening. I had taken a hot shower and was dealing with it," Staine said. "Monday morning, I woke up and had more back pain, and as the day went on it got worse. I thought I should go to the ER. I thought I ruptured a disc or pulled a muscle."

But she soldiered on, watching her husband play basketball at noon and going to her daughter's short play. When Staine got home, she thought a bath might help her pain.

As she talked to her husband on the phone, Staine said her pain was becoming unbearable. Her husband called an ambulance.

"I felt like I was dying. I didn't know what was going on," she said.

During the emergency room examination, Staine and her husband were stunned to learn medical staff had detected a fetal heartbeat.

"Whose baby is that? It's not possible," John told doctors given his vasectomy, the Duluth News Tribune reported Wednesday.

Within six months of a vasectomy, there's an early failure rate that ranges from 0.3 percent to 9 percent, according to a 2010 study from the Canadian Urological Association. Late failure is reported in about 0.04 percent to 0.08 percent of patients, or one in every 2,000 cases.

Staine was whisked to the delivery room and in what she said seemed like 5 minutes later, her daughter was born at 3:25 p.m. Monday. She weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces, and was 18.9 inches long.

"She's got low blood sugar, but she's healthy," Trish told WDIO.

She said her husband has a good sense of humor.

"He's still in shock. Everybody is teasing him," she said.

Born about 5 weeks early, the Staines expect they will be able to take their baby home in about a week, a girl they have named Mira -- short for Miracle.

While Staine's case is rare, she's not alone. Just this past Feb., a 44-year-old Michigan women went to doctors with what she thought was a hernia only to find out she was ready to give birth to a baby girl.