Baby Almost Born on Cruise: Woman Finds Out She’s 33 Weeks Pregnant Hours Before Sailing

Cruise lines have very strict rules about how far along pregnancies can be when passengers step on board. Anything past 23 weeks with a Royal Caribbean sailing and you aren’t booking a cruise, never mind stepping onto the ship.

But one woman was just hours away from enjoying sailaway on Radiance of the Seas out of Tampa, even though she was 33 weeks pregnant.

The thing is, Lauren Siwinski had no idea she was pregnant at all.

She and her fiancé, Gary “David” Glenn, arrived in Tampa the day before the cruise, which is something we at Cruise Fever always advise in order to be ready on time for a vacation at sea.

They both fully expected to get a good night’s sleep and head to the port the next day.

But instead of boarding the ship and being a couple of cruisers for five days, a late-night urgent care visit for weird stomach cramps led to them becoming parents instead.

A Shocking Diagnosis at Urgent Care

As detailed by WTSP, the couple went looking for answers regarding some sudden abdominal pain, only for a doctor to drop the news they weren’t expecting at all.

Or maybe I should say the unexpected news that they were expecting?

The doctor told them, “You guys are pregnant“.

An ultrasound revealed that Lauren was actually 33 weeks along and already experiencing contractions.

Any dreams of stepping foot on the cruise ship were instantly replaced with all the emotions expecting parents feel when a child is about to be born.

Looking back on the total lack of warning signs, Lauren shared:

“I had no symptoms at all. Nothing whatsoever. I had no idea there was a human inside of me.”

Even when she felt movement beforehand, she completely misread the signals:

“I felt some flutters. But I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was just my stomach settling from something I ate. Didn’t think it was a human.”

“I Had No Idea”

Gary was equally stunned by how business-as-usual everything had felt leading up to the trip, especially given her daily physical routine.

He joked about her pre-trip workouts, saying:

“I had her working out and stuff in the gym with me, and she’s sitting there pregnant. I had no idea. She’s like bouncing this bar off her chest. I’m surprised the baby didn’t shoot out right there, you know what I mean?”

Just twelve hours after walking into that clinic, baby boy Sebastian made his debut on July 13.

Lauren, who works at a daycare in Rhode Island, said that her coworkers and family members had donated all kinds of baby supplies and clothing after hearing the news.

The couple just got engaged in May and will be driving back home to greet loved ones with a new member of their family. 

The Baby’s Timing

Royal Caribbean’s pregnancy policy strictly bars anyone past 23 weeks from sailing, and a lot of it is due to a lack of specialized neonatal care at sea.

The cruise line’s website states, “There is no Obstetrician/Gynecologist available on the ship, and.. pregnancies, when unstable and poorly controlled, are potentially life-threatening.”

Cruise Fever just recently reported on a story of a woman who was medically evacuated from a Carnival cruise ship due to pregnancy complications. Without all of the equipment and expertise available on board to help expecting mothers, any pregnancy issues that come up have to be dealt with on land.

So, it was really good timing on the part of baby Sebastian, although the little guy sure did cut it close.

If those cramps had held off for just one more day, Lauren could have easily cleared port security, boarded the Radiance of the Seas, and gone into active labor hundreds of miles out in the middle of the ocean, or even while in a foreign port of call in Mexico.