Second baby by husband dead 6 years

The baby is expected in early July, she said, following a repeat of the artificial insemination treatment that allowed her to conceive her son Liam, now aged three.

Her announcement immediately sparked a storm of debate, with campaigners and medical experts raising questions about the ethics of such a conception.

The 35- year- old, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, won a long legal battle to be able to have the treatment which produced Liam using the stored sperm of Stephen, who died from meningitis in March 1995. Now she has successfully repeated it at the same hospital in Belgium to fulfil her dream of giving Liam a sibling.

She said today: "I'm really proud and my family and friends are all delighted." Mrs Blood said she had kept her pregnancy a secret for the first few critical months but now felt she could no longer hide her growing bump. "I didn't want anyone to know at first," she said.

"Because of the way the treatment works, there isn't one sudden moment when you find out you are pregnant. There are lots of stages. But I'm delighted to be pregnant and am very grateful to those who made it possible."

Mrs Blood had intra-cyctoplasmic sperm injection, a treatment similar to IVF. She fought for years to be able to have the treatment using her late husband's sperm but was originally blocked by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority.

At a news conference with Liam, who seemed bemused by the attention, Mrs Blood said she was sure her husband would have been "delighted", adding: "Stephen was brought up in a home with two sisters and I know he thought that a household with siblings was ideal," she said. "I know he'd be pleased that Liam is to have a little brother or sister.

"I haven't chosen a name yet and I don't know if it is a boy or a girl. I don't want to know."

Mrs Blood didn't think the gap between their father's death and the new baby's birth would put undue pressure on the children.

"There are many children whose fathers die before they are born and it's the same for Liam as it is for children not conceived by IVF," she said. "He has the same things to come to terms with. He knows his Daddy died before he was born. He has seen photos of Stephen and has been to put flowers on his grave.

"But I think it [the seven-year gap between Stephen Blood's death and the new baby's birth] is something that is quite hard to understand and they won't need to get to grips with it until they are quite a bit older and understand about biology, about nine months and so on."

She was asked whether she remains bitter about her long legal battle to have children. "It was very traumatic but I've had so much joy since then that it now seems a long time ago. I love being a mum - if I didn't I wouldn't be doing it again."

She said her husband told her before he became ill that if anything should happen to him, he wanted her to have his baby. When he slipped into a coma, doctors obtained two samples, the second just before Mrs Blood gave permission for life support to be switched off.

When Liam was born a month prematurely there was doubt over whether he would survive. He could not breathe on his own, and he was in intensive care. He is now in full health.

Last year the widow was disappointed after the defeat of a Bill that would have allowed her husband's name to be entered on her son's birth certificate. She plans to sue the Government if promised legislation is not announced soon.

Mrs Blood said Liam was particularly pleased with the news that he is to have a brother or sister, and she had not minded having to leave Britain to have her treatment, which was one of the conditions imposed by courts.

"The place where I was treated had

excellent medical skills and it was an excellent clinic," she said. "It seems a long time ago now, the court case. It was very traumatic at the time, but it is in the past.

"Obviously I would have preferred that my family was all intact and my husband was here, but I knew that was never going to be the case."

Asked whether she would be having any more children after her second child, she said: "I severely doubt it. I fought the court case to get the rest of my life back, and to make decisions as I go along. But I'm 35 now and I doubt it."

Mrs Blood's father, Michael McMahon, said: "We have had such great pleasure from Liam, and we are really looking forward to having another grandchild." He said he and his wife were in close contact with Stephen's parents Gill and Brian Blood. "They are as delighted as us."

Paul Tully, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: "We remain deeply concerned over the law. No written consent was given by Stephen Blood and his sperm wasn't given, it was taken when he was in a coma."

The British Medical Association declined to comment today. When Mrs Blood won her case in 1997, a spokesman said: "[There is a] fundamental principle of individuals' valid and informed consent to the medical procedures to which they and their genetic material are subjected. This principle is central to medical ethics and is particularly important in relation to the use of genetic material."

A spokesman for the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority said today: "Obviously there are emotional and ethical issues surrounding this pregnancy but they are not for us. Our remit concerns enforcing the Act and once a precedent was set allowing her to take her husband's sperm out of the country, it ceased to involve us."

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