A Moroccan woman named Zahra Aboutalib was 26-years-old when she became pregnant with her first child. She lived in a small village and had planned on giving birth outside of a hospital.

She was over the moon about giving birth, but just 48 hours into an excruciating labor, she had to be taken to see doctors.

For the mother and the baby’s safety, doctors told her that she would have to undergo a caesarean section. However, Aboutalib fled from the hospital after witnessing another woman in the ward die during childbirth.

The labor pains continued for a few days after returning to her village, but soon subsided. After she was no longer suffering, she thought maybe she just lost the baby, and continued to go on with her life as if nothing ever happened.

It wasn’t until many years later, 46 to be exact, that those familiar pains surprisingly returned.

The 75-year-old was suspected to have a growing tumor inside her belly, however, a MRI scan revealed it was the baby she had conceived as a young woman.

Aboutalib’s fetus had actually been calcified into a lithopedion or stone baby.

Typically, in an ectopic pregnancy, if the deceased fetus is too big to be re-absorbed by the mother’s body, it will become a foreign object to her immune system.