Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) is hiding the biggest secret of her life – that she’s carrying hers and Ross Barton’s (Michael Parr) baby and

not the surrogate embryo for Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant) and Sarah Sugden (Katie Hill) that everyone thinks. Including her own husband.

 

 

She’s got herself into a right corker of a situation, having discovered the problem but decided against either telling anyone the truth or having a termination, opting instead to try and pass the baby off as Jacob and Sarah’s.

A foolish decision of course, and a new plan that comes with its own problems – more immediate ones than Charity had envisioned.

 

 

She’d thought she’d bought herself some time and that the whole DNA issue might not be a problem for a while. Oh dear, sweet, head-in-the-sand Charity.

What Charity has forgotten is that she’s due to have her next scan, and when it rolls around so does the terror that the scan might reveal the full shocking secret.

 

 

Chas (Lucy Pargeter) makes sure to send her anxiety through the roof too by twisting the knife, still unhappy that Charity has burdened her with this secret.

Charity is at her stress limit and returning home from a bad day to Jacob and Sarah gushing about babies looking like their fathers tips her over the edge. She loses it at them and tells them the scan has been cancelled.

 

 

The young lovers are gutted, and Charity prepares to go to the scan alone. Ever shrewd Chas corners Charity in the back room where Charity reveals her full fear.

Chas opts to go with her for the scan when there’s another, not entirely unexpected, twist – Chas catches Charity looking longingly at the baby on the screen.

But for now, it’s out of that frying pan into another fire – she runs into Jacob at the hospital and her whole cover is blown.