She thought she had a kidney stone. It was a full-term baby girl.

On a recent morning, Rebecca Johnson woke up with back pain. She tried to shrug it off.

“I thought maybe it’s an old mattress or I have sciatica,” said Johnson, 37. “I took a Tylenol and went to work.”

By the time Johnson — a special-education teacher in Virginia — got to school that morning, Sept. 9, she was doubled over in pain.

“I’m telling my husband it feels like labor pains, but there’s no way it’s that,” said Johnson, who works at Dupont Elementary in Hopewell, south of Richmond.

Before long, it hurt too much to walk. Her back throbbed, and she felt a constant urge to urinate. Given the symptoms, she figured it was a kidney stone — something she had never previously experienced.

Johnson and her husband, Lee, rushed to TriCities Hospital. While they waited to see a doctor, the pain intensified by the minute.

“I’m telling my husband this hurts worse than any labor I’ve been in,” said Johnson, who has two daughters, ages 9 and 1. “I’m yelling so loudly.”

Nurses who examined her suspected a kidney stone, too, and moved her to a small private room.

Suddenly, Johnson’s lower half was drenched in fluid — which she assumed was urine she couldn’t control. She then told the nurses she needed to go to the bathroom, and as she sat on a bedside commode, she felt something moving through her.

She looked over at a nurse who appeared to be in shock.

“That’s a head!” the nurse exclaimed.

Johnson was giving birth to a full-term baby girl. She had no idea she was pregnant.

“I’m going through the panic in my brain,” Johnson said. Meanwhile, “my husband has gone sheet white.”

They moved Johnson over to a stretcher to deliver the child.

“I was screaming so loud,” she said. “I delivered within three or four pushes.”

“I look at my husband, and I’m like, ‘What is going on?’” Johnson said.

They were in disbelief. The couple married in 2011, and they spent years trying to start a family. After fertility treatments, they welcomed their first daughter, Clara Snow, in 2016.

“We were told after that we weren’t going to be able to have kids without intervention,” Johnson said.

Eight years later, the couple was stunned when Johnson became pregnant naturally with their second daughter, Cecilia Lyn, who was born in August 2024.

“We just thought this was never going to happen again and it was a big fluke,” Johnson said.

In February 2025, Johnson noticed that her breast milk dried up earlier than expected — which can happen with a new pregnancy — but the same thing had happened six months after the birth of her first daughter. She took two pregnancy tests just to be sure, and both were negative.

Then in April, she started having some pain in her lower abdominal area and assumed it was an ovarian cyst, as she has polycystic ovary syndrome.

“I took one day off work and a couple hot showers and I was fine,” she said, noting that her period had not returned since giving birth to her second daughter, which can be normal with PCOS.

“It can take up to a year to get your cycle back,” Johnson said.

In the months that followed, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Johnson was often tired, she said, but she attributed that to caring for a toddler while working full-time.

She also noticed she wasn’t losing much of the baby weight from her previous pregnancy — something she chalked up to her polycystic ovary syndrome.

“Never once did pregnancy cross my brain,” Johnson said.

When the baby arrived, the hospital staff was as dumbfounded as the parents. TriCities Hospital does not have a labor and delivery unit, so Johnson was transferred that evening to another hospital.

“Everyone was very kind and very loving,” Johnson said. “Everyone came down to see the crazy baby who was born out of nowhere.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, only 1 in 2,500 pregnancies go unnoticed until delivery, in what is called a “cryptic pregnancy,” though staff members at TriCities Hospital said cases like Johnson’s happen more often than one might think.

“We see at least one every year,” said Ashley Cundiff, the hospital’s chief nursing officer. “It was a really fun morning.”

She said Johnson had a “precipitous delivery,” which is when childbirth occurs rapidly and sometimes unexpectedly.

“It unfolded so quickly,” said Brittney Dillard, the nursing director of the emergency room, who was there during Johnson’s delivery. “There was definitely shock among everybody.”

Carlee Evangeline was born weighing 7 pounds and 8 ounces, and doctors believe that Johnson was between 38 and 40 weeks gestation. The story was first reported by CBS 6 News.

“She ended up perfect,” Johnson said. “We were told we weren’t going to have a kid naturally. The second one was a blessing, and this one was just a straight miracle.”

Still, it took Johnson time to adjust to her new reality of having a newborn she wasn’t expecting. Neighbors, friends, and relatives immediately delivered baby clothing and food as soon as the family got home from the hospital.

“We’ve had a lot of support,” Johnson said. “This is amazing but crazy. This is really real.”

Johnson said their three girls are “doing great” and adjusting well.

“Everybody is happy and healthy,” she said, adding that Carlee’s personality has started to come through. She is a big cuddler, Johnson said, and she often gives side-eye.

Johnson hopes their story offers hope to people facing fertility challenges.

“Just remember, it’s not always your timing. Sometimes God steps in when you least expect it,” she said.

Although Carlee’s arrival was certainly a shock, Johnson said her family feels complete.

“I wouldn’t want the story to go any other way,” she said. “It’s who I get to come home to.”