Wisconsin teen had surprise birth and tried to pass it off as abandoned baby: 'I never thought I'd be a mother at 17'

A Wisconsin teen who was oblivious to being pregnant for nine months gave birth to a boy and tried to pass the newborn off as an abandoned baby.

Braeley Pettigrew, 17, gave birth to the baby boy while she was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night after she was feeling sick.

The Racine, Wis., high school student thought she was having a bowel movement but, to her surprise, looked down in the toilet and discovered a newborn instead.

In a panic, she took the baby out, cut the umbilical cord and wrapped the boy in a blanket.
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Braeley Pettigrew, 17, is a high school basketball player and excels at school and still plans to go to college.

“It was just me acting on an instinct, it was to grab him out of the toilet and wrap him up and keep him warm,” the teen told CBS 58 News.

But she wasn’t ready to admit to her mom that she had suddenly become a teen mom, and told her instead that someone had left the newborn on their front porch.

Her mother noticed blood on the baby and on Braeley’s clothes and called the cops, who took the teen and the newborn to the hospital.
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Braeley Pettigrew named the surprise newborn Kayden and decided to keep him.

The high school basketball player has decided to keep the surprise baby and gave him the name Kayden.

“I feel shocked, like I never thought I would be a mother at 17,” she said.

The teen, who excels at school and still plans to attend college, had college visits on the books with her mom, but now they are on hold, according to CBS 58.