Chas Dingle will give birth next week to daughter Grace knowing that the baby won’t survive for long.
Chas and her partner Paddy Kirk have known for months that their baby wouldn’t live much beyond birth following a devastating diagnosis at the 20-week scan.
It was revealed that their daughter had a condition called bilateral renal agenesis, which means her kidneys didn’t properly develop while in the womb.
A distraught Chas was told that the baby had no chance of survival with neither kidney operating and that she would pass away shortly after being born.
Paddy and Chas then made the decision to carry on with the pregnancy and give their unborn child the best life they possibly could under the circumstances.
They also decided to let Grace’s organs be donated in the hope that their loss could help other families.
After Chas gives birth to Grace, her and Paddy share a tender moment with their new daughter.
But their happiness is bittersweet as her birth means they are one step closer to having to say goodbye and the countdown to her death has begun.
How will the couple possibly get through losing their baby in such tragic circumstances?
Fans can expect extremely emotional scenes coming up as Chas goes in to labour and the pair welcome and then say goodbye to their baby girl.
But Lucy Pargeter reveals that the scenes should surprise viewers, too.
In an interview published in The Sun, she revealed that watchers will be “smiling through their tears”.
Explaining how they hope the episode will help people going through similar experiences, she said: “It’s not your typical episode.
“I was pleased to see it because I didn’t want to do as much harrowing birth [acting] and everything.”
She added: “It will hopefully have people smiling through their tears as well as being deeply upset by it.”
Admitting that the scenes have been some of the most “difficult” she’s ever filmed, Lucy revealed she didn’t have to dig too deep to find the emotions as both she and Dominic Brunt [who plays Paddy] have young children.
She continued: “We’ve had to go to some pretty dark places.
“It’s been difficult but the writing has been so beautiful and the topic is so emotive anyway that it’s been ridiculously harrowing and really hard but, as I say, we’re not going through it – we get to go home to our beautiful kids and we’ve been lucky to have healthy kids.”
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Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7pm and 8pm on ITV