When her unborn baby developed a tumour "the size of a rugby ball", doctors advised Fran McRoberts to have an abortion.

　　They said there was only a 50 per cent chance he would survive the pregnancy. In addition, her own life was also at risk if she continued.

　　Mrs McRoberts, 35, and her husband Alexander decided the risks were worth it.

　　"Having an abortion was never an option," she said. "I might have been naive to take the risk, but there was no way I was going to give up on him." After their son was born, surgeons removed the 3lb tumour, which was growing on the outside of his body from his coccyx.

　　But a year later more heartache was in store. Doctors found a second life-threatening tumour wrapped around the length of his spinal cord.

　　This time, the prognosis was even more grim.

　　Doctors said the baby, named Alexander after his father, had only a "slim chance" of surviving an operation to remove the tumour. He would almost certainly be left paralysed from the neck down.

　　But Alexander did it again.

　　Not only did he make it through the 15-hour operation, he now walks and runs about like any other toddler.