their child, and that it wasn't the first time it had happened, but the third. Distraught in believing that it is impossible for her to carry a child to term, Anna becomes upset, believing she had let Bates down. He tries to convince her that despite wanting children, she alone is enough for him, which she has trouble accepting. Anna later tells Mary of her troubles. Mary offers to take Anna to London, paying for her to visit Dr Ryder, the doctor that had treated Mary for problems when she had trouble conceiving a child with Matthew. Ryder informs Anna that he has identified the problem and that she has a common issue of having cervical incompetence, a condition which results in a baby becoming too heavy for the womb to support after about three months, but also tells her that the condition is easily treatable with cervical cerclage, a stitch inserted into the womb after a woman has been pregnant for about 12 weeks; however, it does not always work. Anna returns to Downton but chooses not to inform Bates of the news until she becomes pregnant again and the stitch has worked, so as not to get his hopes up. In episode 3, Mary asks if Anna has considered Dr Ryder's advice. Anna reveals that she's already pregnant again. However, in episode 4 she begins to suffer severe cramps and fears she is suffering another miscarriage. Mary, claiming the emergency to be for herself, rushes Anna to London to see Ryder and manages to get there in time to save the baby. When they return, Bates knows that it was she, not Mary that had the medical emergency; however, this time she tells him that the news is happy and that she is in fact pregnant, to which Bates is overjoyed. Whilst Anna is pregnant, she still fears that as there are months to wait, the baby is still in danger of being lost, despite her husband's insistence that nothing will go wrong. In episode 6 Anna begins to experience uncomfortable pains again and Bates insists he pay for her to see Ryder again. However, the pains are nothing to worry about, as it's just her body adjusting to the pregnancy. In episode 7, after the accident at the car racing in Brooklands, Anna rushes after Mary, Bates warns her not to do so "in her condition" and