Mom has baby an hour after learning she's pregnant

On Tuesday morning, Katherine Kropas woke up complaining of sharp pains in her stomach. It was supposed to be a typical day at work for the 23-year-old, but a surprise was coming.

That surprise weighed in at 10 pounds, 2 ounces and was 23 inches long: It was her newborn baby girl -- and Kropas hadn't known she was pregnant.

"I felt like I was getting stabbed in my lower back," Kropas said. "I have a high tolerance for pain, but this was like a 9" on a scale of 10.

Admitted to the South Shore Hospital's emergency room in South Weymouth, Mass., in the morning, Kropas spent the day undergoing tests to see what was causing her pain. Her boyfriend of two years, 40-year-old Dan Keefe, was with her.

Initially, blood tests indicated she was five weeks pregnant and, for Kropas, that wasn't entirely surprising.

"I noticed my ankles were swollen and there was a bit of blood. I had no idea I was full-term, though," she said.

As the nurses examined her around 10:15 on Tuesday night, they noticed something else: She was 9 centimeters dilated and about to give birth.

"My boyfriend, Dan, asked if he should call my mom," Kropas said. "'Yeah, you should probably call,' I said."

Less than an hour later, Ellen Olivia Keefe was born via emergency C-section.

Kropas woke up from the anesthesia just after midnight on Wednesday to her family cradling her daughter, whom she plans to call Ellie.

At just a few days old, little Ellie is already famous.

"It's been an exciting couple of days, but it's tiring. At this point it might as well be a meet and greet," she said about people stopping by. "People come by saying, we knew each other freshman year of high school, and I'm like, OK."

"We're definitely happy," Kropas said, but said that focusing on her and Ellie's health is her priority. Both will stay in the hospital until Sunday, with the baby's father close by.

Marriage and baby showers will follow, she said.

"No need to rush anything else at this point," Kropas said.

Editor's note: The reporter and Katherine Kropas are connected via Facebook.