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Lucy Gardiner
Lucy came to Wandin Valley in February 1989 to work as a nurse at the hospital. She was very bubbly and full of life. And she had a huge heart -- she was always fighting for some cause or another (very like Molly in that regard). She liked to collect animals -- she had a rooster named Rhett, chooks, and angora goats (among others). She was going to buy a car but decided that a bicycle was more her style. She lived with Cathy for awhile (until Cathy got married) and then moved in with Steve and Ann before she and Matt finally moved in together. She loved to play the piano (though she was still a beginner).
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Lucy was born in
Wollongong. Her father, Patrick, was a steel worker, and
her mother, Lois, was in show business as a dance
teacher, choreographer, and actress. Lucy was expected to
go into show business as well but, after watching a
friend die of leukemia, she decided to become a nurse.
She studied midwifery at Wollongong Hospital and did a
year in Casualty, where she met and fell in love with a
young intern named Warwick Saunders. He left her behind
when he won a scholarship to the U.S. -- unfortunately,
he'd already infected her with chlamydia, leaving her
fallopian tubes scarred and rendering her incapable of
conceiving a child.
She and Matt found each
other while they were sharing Cathy's house. They began
renovating their dream home before they got married but
the house (and just about everything they owned) was
destroyed in a huge bush fire (that was set by a
pyromaniac). They eventually found and bought another
farmhouse (supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little
girl named Erin and containing an old rickety wood stove
that Lucy called "Ivan the Terrible"). Their
marriage almost didn't happen, when Lucy's mom and dad
threatened to split up, but they were finally web by both
a Catholic priest and a Protestant reverend. Lucy
discovered she was allergic to dogs so they had to give
their dog (aptly named "Dog") to 
Because of the damage to
her fallopian tubes, Lucy encountered great difficulty
getting pregnant once she and Matt decided to have
children. They considered adoption and at one point
fostered an infant named Jason who they grew to love.
Lucy tried in vitro fertilization (IVF) but none of the
eggs took. She finally decided to have an operation to
try to repair some of the damage to her tubes. She was
obsessed with getting pregnant and it almost destroyed
the marriage. She learned she was pregnant in 