An Extra ordinary story of Survival !

To become a mother is every married female's desire. But it takes her through a tough course of 9 months before she could become mother. These 9 months are filled with lot of happiness, anxiety and fear. But how scary it would be, if someone has to be pregnant for 46 years ?!! Unbelievable but it is true in case of Zahra !

Zahra Aboutalib is a 75 year old woman from Morocco who finally gave birth to a dead baby, after 46 years ! It all started in 1955, in a village of Casablanca, when Zahra was a 25 year old lady who was pregnant for her first child. As she reached 9th month of pregnancy, it normally started to pain in her stomach. For her bad luck, the baby didn't shift even after 48 hours and doctors said that caesarian is the only way for her to take out the baby. But when Zahra saw another pregnant woman next to her table dying with the pain of caesarian, She went on panic. So she decided not to go for caesarian, but to die with her child in womb.

As a local myth said, because of curse, babies tend to sleep inside womb which would come out later in time. She believed in this myth called "Sleeping baby", and let her fate to decide this.

Day by day the pain started to increase but she didn't bother. As days passed, baby stopped moving inside and the pain went away. She adopted three children to forget the sad feeling and became a grand mother. Everything was going fine for five decades untill that day come.

In 2001, her stomach was swollen again and it started paining. As the pain grew unbearable, her son took her to a hospital in town. Primary check up didn't help doctors to understand anything. After a detailed MRI, doctors weren't able to believe what they saw, there was a stone baby which was 46 years old !! During early days, the baby had developed outside the womb and fused with Zahra's internal organs. This made the baby unable to be born, and finally it died. This dead body developed a layer of hard calcified material around the baby, to protect itself from infection which the doctors called as stone baby.

But it is impossible to carry a dead baby inside. Then what made it possible ? Answer is, Zahra's body had accepted the stone baby as any other normal organ !! This time she had to under go surgery, but with better infrastructure & technology, it made possible to save her. And thus making it an extra ordinary story of Survival !