A Mother-TO-BE died from cancer just weeks after becoming pregnant.

Tracy Alexander, who would have been 24 yesterday, was overjoyed when she conceived.

But her delight was cruelly cut short when it was discovered she had cancer during a routine hospital appointment.

Then days before she was due to start treatment on the blood disease, Burkitt's Lymphoma, she suffered a miscarriage.

Tracey's sister Helen, 25, said: "All Tracy wanted was to be a mother." She and older sister Claire, 27, both have children who Tracy was devoted to.

Helen said: "Tracy just wanted to be the same as us and have a baby as well, so she was really thrilled when she found out she was pregnant.

The leukaemia was discovered when Tracy, who worked at a computer components factory, went for a check-up 16 weeks into her pregnancy.

From the family home in Bedlington, Northumberland, her father Peter. 47, said: "Tracy was such a lovely girl who liked to go out with her friends having fun and enjoying herself. She hadn't had any health problems before this."

"The doctors said it was a rare form of leukaemia and she went downhill rapidly. She lost her fight for life three weeks later."

Tracy leaves two brothers, Andrew, 21, and Mathew, 16, Her mother Janice was too upset to comment.