Mum gives birth just hours after learning of pregnancy

Cilla Ward pictured with her daughter Dollyanna

A mother has told of the shock moment a doctor informed her she was pregnant - just hours before she gave birth to her first child.

Cilla Ward (29) had no idea she was expecting when she woke up in the middle of the night in April 2011 with what she thought was period pain.

Cilla Ward pictured with baby Dollyanna shortly after her birth

However, as the night progressed the searing pain down her back worsened, prompting her to wake her parents who rushed her to Dublin's Beaumont Hospital.

"I was vomiting and vomiting, I thought I was dying. I went into my mam and dad's room and begged them to take me to hospital. I knew something was really, really wrong.

"I was in such pain that I was seen almost straight away." An ultrasound by doctors at Beaumont revealed the __news the then 23-year-old never expected.

"The doctor came to my bedside and brought out an ultrasound. He asked what I heard. 'My heartbeat,' I said. But he told me there were two."

A stunned Cilla was already in labour and was brought to the Rotunda Hospital for the delivery.

"The midwife told me to prepare myself for the worst. They thought my baby was going to be very small because my bump was so small. I was hardly showing at all, I had no idea."

"I was so worried that the baby wasn't going to be okay. I was terrified," said Cilla.

However, she gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter who she named Dollyanna after her aunt and mother and who is now in senior infants.

Irish Independent