WHEN dad-of-three Craig Dolan was rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis the last thing he expected was for his partner to follow be taken in on the same day.

But just hours after he lay recovering in Blackburn Royal Infirmary, partner Sharon Smith was racing to Queen's Park in an ambulance having gone into labour with the couple's third child.

Craig only knew of the birth of daughter Amy from progress reports given to him by nurses who took regular telephone calls from the maternity unit at the hospital across town. Luckily his suspected meningitis turned out to be nothing more than a severe migraine.

Craig, 30, of Crompton Place, Blackburn, said: "I'd started getting headaches and feeling really sick and was rushed into hospital at about one o'clock in the morning. As I lay in bed recovering the next day I started getting telephone calls telling me my wife was in hospital and a baby was on the way.

"Although I had my mobile phone with me it was switched off so the only information I was getting was from nurses who kept coming in and giving me updates."

Craig has suffered from a run of bad luck when it comes to the birth of his children.

Although he made it to first son Luke's birth, he missed that of second child, Kyle, now three, because he was at a friend's house.

Back then, which he got home to find a message on the answering machine saying that Sharon, 29, was in labour he didn't make it to the hospital in time because her labour only lasted 20 minutes.

He said: "I couldn't believe that we had both been in hospital within 24 hours of each other.

"The odds against that happening to both parents at the same time must be hundreds of thousands to one."