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Guest Character Profiles > Dr Dora Dietrich Kirsty Hillhouse

After receiving a positive result on a pregnancy test, Elly Conway hoped that the news might repair her fractured relationship with Mark Brennan, after he'd found out on their wedding day that she'd cheated on him with his sister, Chloe. Unfortunately, after going to the hospital and having some tests with Dr Dora Dietrich, Elly was upset to learn that she'd received a false positive on the test, likely due to a sleeping pill she'd taken the night before. Convinced that this news would be the final nail in the coffin for her marriage, Elly decided not to tell Mark, attempting to seduce him in order to get pregnant for real. When that plan failed, as Mark was still struggling to be intimate with her, Elly ended up sleeping with Shaun Watkins and found herself expecting his baby instead.

With Mark still believing that she was at the end of the first trimester, when she was only around seven weeks pregnant, Elly tried to avoid him attending her ultrasound. When he turned up at the hospital anyway, Elly was forced to cover quickly, claiming that she'd already been in to see the doctor. When Dr Dietrich then called Elly in for her appointment, she was forced to lie again, telling Mark that she had a question for her but had changed her mind, before rushing him out of the building, telling him that the scan went well and that they'd receive a print out when the hospital had fixed the printer. Elly quickly made another appointment for the following day with Dr Dietrich, where she explained the situation - that her marriage was unstable and Mark wrongly believed he was the father, adding that she'd suffered a miscarriage before and didn't want any unnecessary stress. Dr Dietrich insisted that her only priority was delivering a healthy baby for Elly and that she wouldn't tell Mark anything about the size of the baby.

A desperate Elly then stole an ultrasound photo of Caitlin, the baby Sonya Rebecchi had miscarried when she was acting as a surrogate for Mark and his girlfriend Steph, and doctored it to make it look like her own. Hopeful that she'd covered all bases, Elly was unaware that Dean Mahoney, one of the students she taught at Erinsborough High, was Dr Dietrich's son. As Dean had clashed with Elly several times, he was interested to see her medical file in his mum's office while he was waiting for her one day, and he read it, using the information - that Elly had requested that her husband Mark not be given any details about the baby - to blackmail her over his school marks. As Dean pushed his luck at school, he then asked Elly to help him to get alcohol for the school camp, which she tried, but failed, to do. Working late at the school the following evening, Elly was alarmed when all of the lights suddenly went out and, as she went for help, she was attacked and knocked to the ground. At the hospital, Dr Dietrich examined her and, as they chatted, was surprised to learn that Elly knew that Dean was her son. Following a full examination and an ultrasound, Elly was informed that, although she'd suffered a small placental abruption, the baby seemed to be doing fine.

When Dean returned after a week at camp, he quickly blamed Elly for the terrible time he'd had without any alcohol and started blackmailing her again, this time with her real ultrasound photo that he'd stolen from his mum's office. As Elly insisted that she wasn't going to let him do this, as the stress was too much for her, they were watched by her ex - and Shaun's half-brother - Finn Kelly, who kept an eye on him and, when he was distracted, grabbed the ultrasound and kept it. After working out that Shaun was the father, Finn agreed to keep the secret and even gave Dean money to leave Elly alone, at which point he also transferred to a different school. However, after a few more weeks of lying, Elly finally realised that she had to be honest about everything. After telling Mark the truth, she was thrown out by him and, at her next appointment with Dr Dietrich, she told her all about Dean's blackmail, with the suggestion that Dean make a charitable donation with the money Finn gave him.

Episodes Featured
8068, 8093, 8094, 8097, 8112

Biography by Steve

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