What happens when the birth of the baby is not achieved within a normal period of time from the apparent onset of labour? Some families might summon a surgeon who would try his best to deliver the mother as quickly as possible. However, poorer families in particular might be reluctant to go to this expense, and simply send away the midwife, hoping that time and Nature would still achieve a happy outcome. For it is quite possible that the pregnancy had not yet really reached its term. Louise Bourgeois records a number of cases (episodes 10, 16)in which she returned several times before the birth actually took place. Two authors, however, tell birthing tales which provide a cautionary lesson on the dangers of ignoring an aborted birth. Simon de Provanchières and Théophile Gelée both tell of women who had failed to expel a dead foetus. In Gelée's tale, the calcified foetus remained in the womb for six and a half months, while in Provanchières's it remained undiscovered for twenty-eight years!.