Expectant mother Lorraine Allard learned the devastating news that she was in the advanced stages of liver cancer when she was four months pregnant, according to the Daily Mail.

Allard, of St. Olaves in the U.K., had a choice: Delay treatment to save her baby, or terminate the pregnancy to save herself.

She chose the former, waiting until the fetus was viable before scheduling a Caesarean section.

"If I am going to die, my baby is going to live," Allard told her husband, Martyn, according to the Mail.

The baby came a week early and Allard, 33, gave birth on Nov. 18 to a healthy but premature boy she named Liam.

Exactly two months later, Allard died. She'd begun chemotherapy just after her son's birth. But in the end, it was too late.

Doctors believe Allard had bowel cancer that had gone undetected for years, eventually spreading to her liver. She realized something was wrong after she began suffering from stomach cramps, and tests revealed that her liver was covered with malignant tumors, the Mail reported.

"The doctors said they couldn't do anything because she was pregnant," Martyn Allard, 34, told the Mail. "She told them straight away they were not going to get rid of it. She'd have lost the will to fight."

The courageous and selfless mother was able to get out of bed and hold her tiny son several times beside his incubator before her death. Liam is the Allards' fourth child and first boy; his sisters are Leah, 10; Amy, 8; and Courtney, 20 months.

"Lorraine was positive all the way through," Martyn Allard told the paper. "She had strength for both of us. I can't begin to describe how brave she was. Towards the end we knew things weren't going well, but she was overjoyed that she had given life to Liam."


Wow. What a tough choice.

Never having been in her place, I can't and won't comment on whether it was the right or wrong choice and I can only imagine the agony she and her husband went through to make the decision they did.

Choice. This is the key word here, choice.

Thanks to laws that allow women to be in charge of their bodies and medical decisions, she was able to make the choice that was right for her particular situation. What a shame it would be if the government would take that choice away from her, as some people here continually advocate.

Can you imagine the conversations this husband and wife had during this time. It was agonizing just reading the story.

There are no guarantees in this life, but like Vitalogy made note of, we do have the ability to make choices. And in many ways we are known by our choices.

Thanks for this story. It's one that makes you stop and take stalk of the blessings you have in your life.

Frankly, I can't!

That's just a brutal situation. It takes strong people to get through that. Hope they have better luck going forward.