A woman discovered that she was pregnant while being prepared for an operation to remove her ovaries.
Caroline Darlington, 39, and husband Roy, 48, tried for years to have children – even turning to IVF – and had accepted their family was complete with their adopted son, now six.
She suffered from excruciating endometriosis and a cyst, so reluctantly decided to have her last ovary removed.
In a final scan to check her womb before surgery, the sonographer made an unexpected discovery.
Caroline was 16 weeks pregnant with her 'miracle first biological child.
She told the Daily Star: “I had a scan, and the nurse told me ‘your ovary looks fine, but you’re actually pregnant’.
“My stomach had been swollen but I just assumed it was the cyst growing.
“I remember thinking ‘Oh my god, what is my husband going to say!’ We were both in complete shock for a few days. We feel our new arrival is a miracle.”
Caroline and Roy married in 2001, and a year later started trying for a family. But nothing came of their efforts, with even IVF proving unsuccessful.
They eventually decided to stop fertility treatment. In 2015, the couple adopted a 10-month-old little boy, and believed he had made their family life complete.
However, on Christmas Day 2016, Caroline suffered a second ruptured ovarian cyst and was diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the womb lining begins growing in other places such as the ovaries.
The pain was too much to bear so Caroline, from Warrington, Cheshire, eventually asked to have her painful ovaries removed
In September 2020, she found out she was 16 weeks pregnant. She waited to tell Roy the news to his face – but when she got home he’d already guessed, telling her he could 'hear her smiling' down the phone.
Baby Jorge arrived on March 29 at Warrington General Hospital – where Caroline had been due to have her ovary removed – weighing a healthy 11lb 4oz .
Caroline added: "We feel grateful for our blessing and want people out there to know you should never give up hope!"
