Pregnant for 46 Years....

Let me preface this post: If you are pregnant or have a weak stomach, stop reading this post immediately. It's would not be wise for you to read this.



Somehow, I always find myself watching the craziest shows on TLC and The Discovery Channel. It seems they all end up about miraculous pregnancies or strange illnesses...most involving some "viewer discretion" because of the possibility of viewing something that would make the normal viewer squeamish. I LOVE these shows...you can't get me to watch a gory horror movie (i.e. "Saw"), but I'll watch a surgery on T.V. any day.

I watched a program last night on TLC entitled "Pregnant for 46 Years." It caught my attention immediately. A 75 year old woman from Morocco talked about how she was pregnant 46 years ago, went into labor and was unable to have the baby naturally. She was terrified at the thought of having a C-Section after viewing another woman die in the hospital, so she went back home!!! She labored for 3 more days and then the labor pains stopped and the baby stopped moving. Her culture believed in a "sleeping baby," so that's just what she thought it had done...gone to sleep inside of her.

Fast forward 46 years. She begins to have the same pains again and her adopted son insisted she go to the hospital. Long story short, her pregnancy had been an ectopic one, but the unique thing about it was that the baby had implanted OUTSIDE her womb and the placenta was attached to several vital organs. Apparently this is rare. They did surgery and removed a "stone" baby....a baby that dies inside the mother and then the body begins to build a calcified wall around it. This woman had carried her baby for 46 years! I couldn't help but cry...you could see everything about this baby...it's arms, fingers, etc. SO sad.

The IRONIC thing about this is that this woman LIVED because of her fear of surgeries. In 1955, if they had attempted to remove the baby and placenta, she would have bled to death because while the vital organs were able to establish an ample blood supply to the baby, those new blood vessels would never have been able to shrink back.

It's amazing what the body will do to protect itself from harm.