Personal Stories: The mothers who had a medical emergency when pregnant

Read the personal stories of Pamela and see how these women coped when illness or other complications arose in their pregnancy.

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DANIELLA

When Daniella Jackson was diagnosed with cancer at five months pregnant her doctors quickly advised her to have an abortion. They said she needed a termination to allow her lung tumour to be removed before it killed her." Read more here

PAMELA

"The doctors encouraged me to terminate the pregnancy but that wasn't an option for me and they said it would be much easier to treat (the breast cancer) but my partner and I had lost a baby the year before and that just made it not even on the table." Read more here

JOCELYN

For just 18 months earlier the 34-year-old beautician, who lives in Guernsey with husband Matthew, 36, a pilot, and their two other children, Harry, five, and Toby, three, was given the news that she was suffering from cancer of the cervix – the opening to the uterus. Days later, she discovered she was also seven weeks pregnant. Read more here

ZOLIA

Zoila Leiva was four-and-a-half months pregnant and looking forward to having twins when she received some terrible news - she had breast cancer. But the 42-year-old from Whittier in California, refused to have an abortion and was able to battle back to health and keep her precious sons despite undergoing chemotherapy. Read more here

MARTHA

Doctors have saved the lives of a woman and her unborn child after performing a liver transplant on her while she was five months pregnant. Martha Pecarrere and her daughter Sofia would have died without the surgery, which has only been successfully performed five times across the world. The Argentine housewife was operated on after falling into a coma brought on by hepatitis. Read more here

MICHELLE

The choice Michelle Stepney faced was stark. Michelle, already mother to a four-year-old boy, was 19 weeks pregnant with twins when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Read more here

VICTORIA

A MOTHER who was told she must choose between saving her own life or that of her unborn baby has stunned doctors by giving birth to a healthy child – then beating cancer. Victoria Webster, 33, had to decide whether to begin chemotherapy and lose her baby or risk her own life by waiting until after the birth. Read more here

DONNA

When Donna Hewetson found out she was pregnant in late 2008, she was thrilled. Donna and her now-husband Matt had been trying for months to get pregnant, and had suffered through a difficult miscarriage only two months prior. But things started going wrong at around 12 weeks. "I got admitted to hospital with excruciating left-sided pain," recounts Donna, according to the Lichfield Mercury. "The doctors couldn't understand what it was, but they knew it wasn't pregnancy-related." Read more here

LISA

Lisa Peterson-Bender was 11 weeks' pregnant when she found the malignant lump - and it left doctors with a daunting dilemma: treat the mother, or protect the unborn baby. Read more here

NICOLLETE

A woman defied the odds - and medical advice - by giving birth to a healthy baby she had carried just outside her uterus. Doctors had thought Nicollete Soto, 27, from Phoenix, Arizona, was carrying the foetus in her abdomen, completely outside her womb. Read more here

KANDACE

Kandace Smith, from South Louisiana, U.S. was told by doctors to terminate the dangerous triplet pregnancy as they didn't think she was going to survive. She made medical history by giving birth to identical triplets while suffering from cystic fibrosis. Read more here

SARAH BEST

When four months pregnant with her first child, Sarah Best was given the devastating news that she was suffering from cancer. To save her life, she urgently needed radiotherapy - but knowing it could harm her unborn baby, she was terrified to go ahead with the treatment. Read more here

ERIKA

After four miscarriages 28-year-old Erika was pregnant again, and this time the baby was healthy. But then she discovered a lump in her left breast. Read more here

MEG

Diagnosed with breast cancer and discovering she was pregnant, Meg Booth feared the worst for her and her baby. Read more here

DAWN

Michael clung to me and started to cry. I just stared, my mind blank. I managed to say: 'What about my baby?' The consultant said: 'It would be easier to treat you if you weren't pregnant...' Read more here

MEGAN

A family in Cork has called their baby girl a "miracle" as she continues to thrive despite being diagnosed with a rare condition while in the womb, leading doctors to claim she would not survive. The grandparents of baby Megan Hope Byrne shared her story with a local paper earlier this week, telling how their prayers had been answered, baby Megan survived and is now 13 months old. Read more here

ALISON

Five months into her pregnancy doctors broke the devastating news that Alison had cancer. An Australian of Scots decent, Alison, who was 37 at the time, had always known she was at risk from the disease - her gran had died after a malignant melanoma spread. Read more here