By Miss Malaclara Weatherfax
The sun had scarcely risen over the alabaster spires of New Ankh-Morpork’s Colonial Inn when Lady Helena Greenthumb discovered herself in an unexpected communion with the fertility gods—namely because she had no recollection of ever being pregnant. One moment, she was debating the merits of salted seaweed tea with a vendor of volcanic ash poultices; the next, her bowels declared open revolt, and a babe slid forth upon the ceramic floor as serenely as a dropped pearl. Patrons scattered like crickets at a dragon’s sneeze. The bath attendants—vestal virgins renowned for their unflappable calm—blinked twice and then whipped out scrolls to record the miracle.[1][2]
“I thought I was merely bloated from too many fried quetzal wings,” Lady Greenthumb later confessed, her voice pitched somewhere between wonder and indignation. “Then my innards decided to host their own symposium and invited a brand-new human.” She had been maintaining her usual regime of four-times-weekly gymnasium visits and consuming her regular meals of roasted fowl and fermented grains, utterly oblivious to the tiny sovereign growing within her imperial chambers.[2][1]
Local magistrates scrambled to label the event either a sign from the divine or a grievous breach of public hygiene. One high priest, smelling a chance for renewed tithes, proposed establishing permanent birthing chambers within all bathhouses—an idea quickly shelved to avoid “excess paperwork in the afterlife.” The bureaucratic nightmare that followed was perhaps more torturous than the birth itself: without proper documentation, young Lady Oliviana (named after a hospital cleric) became a diplomatic prisoner, unable to cross borders while empire clerks debated whether a hotel privy constituted a “home birth” or required hospital classification.[3][1][2]
Meanwhile, Lord Michael Greenthumb awoke to what he initially mistook for neighboring revelry, only to discover his wife cradling their unexpected third heir in the temple’s smallest chamber. “I was in such a fog; we could barely comprehend what was happening,” he later testified to imperial scribes. “We didn’t even verify the child’s gender—a temple guard informed us.”[1][2]
The family’s extended stay in New Ankh-Morpork cost them approximately 12,200 gold pieces—a sum that included hospital tributes, extended lodging, and emergency infant provisions. Yet they made the most of their bureaucratic captivity, taking four-day-old Oliviana to witness the Great Tower and the Falls of Perpetual Mist twice, attending three gladiatorial contests, and sharing what Lady Greenthumb described as “a truly special time together, despite chasing after birth scrolls and travel permits during working days.”[2][3]
In whispered circles, the tale has become known as The Miracle of the Porcelain Temple, a cautionary allegory for those who dare trust modern diagnostics over the capricious humors of the womb. Lady Greenthumb had suffered what palace physicians term a “cryptic pregnancy”—continuing her monthly blood rituals throughout, experiencing no swelling of the imperial belly, and maintaining all her courtly duties without suspicion.[1][2]
To skeptics who demand ultrasounds and charts, Miss Weatherfax offers this: “Corduroy may not be a phase, but your faith in science? Now that’s a phase you never saw coming.”
And so, as the gods inevitably file their own paperwork, the Greenthumb family has returned to their ancestral seat with their surprise heir—though the parents still describe the entire ordeal as feeling “surreal” and “bonkers,” while little Oliviana has brought them “immense joy.”[2][1]
“Justice brews slowly—let it steep.”
—Miss Malaclara Weatherfax, The Clacks Leak
Witchcraft, Women’s Affairs & Unseen Wombs
References:
- UK Woman Discovers She’s 9 Months Pregnant While On Holiday, Gives Birth In Toilet – News18, August 14, 2025
- I had no idea I was pregnant until I gave birth on the toilet – New York Post, August 15, 2025
- Woman gives birth to surprise baby on the toilet during trip to Canada – New York Post, August 14, 2025
[1] https://www.news18.com/viral/uk-woman-discovers-shes-9-months-pregnant-while-on-holiday-gives-birth-in-toilet-ws-ekl-9506491.html [2] https://nypost.com/2025/08/15/lifestyle/i-had-no-idea-i-was-pregnant-until-i-gave-birth-on-the-toilet-2/ [3] https://nypost.com/2025/08/14/lifestyle/woman-gives-birth-to-surprise-baby-on-the-toliet-during-trip-to-canada/ [4] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/woman-gives-birth-surprise-baby-211210829.html [5] https://www.aol.com/woman-20-gives-birth-17-183323383.html [6] https://www.today.com/parents/woman-didn-t-know-she-was-pregnant-9-months-gives-t214012 [7] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/had-no-idea-pregnant-until-130000160.html
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All characters (even if inspired by real or fictional ones), situations, and organizations are fictionalized or parodied for the purpose of critique, humor, and social analysis.
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While real public figures may be satirized, all critiques are ultimately directed at systems of power, institutional rot, and the absurdities of human governance—not at individuals for personal or defamatory purposes.
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