Lisa Faulkner opens up about infertility: 'I felt like a failure for a very long time.'

Lisa Faulkner has opened up about her difficult journey towards becoming a parent on This Morning.

The actress and cook joined Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on the show to discuss her new book Meant to Be.

The former Holby City star had tried to conceive naturally with her ex-husband, then underwent multiple rounds of IVF.

However, Lisa eventually became a mother through adopting her now-12 year-old daughter, Billie.

The TV personality says that she has written her new book “for anyone who has found themselves facing the unexpected in life.”

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Lisa explained: “I wanted to write a book that gave that little bit of hope...Infertility is a really hard one.

“Just when people start trying to have babies and it doesn’t quite go to plan, and it goes from ‘Oh, we’re just going to try and see what happens’ to ‘Okay, rigid trying’ and then that doesn’t work, and IVF and everything else didn’t work.

“I just wanted to be a hand to hold for those people...There is positivity and there are other ways to have a family.”

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On eventually getting pregnant, Lisa said: “We were trying and I was so excited and to have that pregnancy stick that said ‘Yes.’

“I still have it actually, which is really funny.

“And it ended up that I had an ectopic, and I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

“I was filming and I literally passed out and had to tell people as I was rushed to hospital.

“And when I got there everyone kept saying it was an ectopic pregnancy, and because it still had pregnancy in the title I thought that I was still pregnant.

“I thought that maybe they could move it as they had said it was growing in the wrong place.

“I had no idea that it wasn’t viable...And it all sort of spiralled from there. But that moment of feeling that I was pregnant and it was amazing... was just shattering.”

On her IVF journey, Lisa said: “I think it was really difficult, and I think that anyone going through IVF will understand, that moment where you build up all your hopes and you put your trust into your doctor.

“It’s a bit like you can be carried along on a sea of medication and everything for a while.

“And you go ‘I’m doing everything right’ and then it doesn’t work. Everyone else in my round got pregnant. The feeling of failure at something that you think ‘Well, the drugs are there, this is something I should be able to do now’ was just crippling, and I did feel like a failure for a very long time.”

When Lisa was finally told by one of her doctors that she was unable to get pregnant, she was heartbroken. She said: “I went back to see him [my doctor] when I was writing the book because, and I said to him after crying, thinking I was fine, but crying, I said ‘Why did you let me go?’ and he said ‘Because I could see that you were done, you were emotionally done.’

“I thought I was giving to the world ‘I’m fine, I’m going through it all and I’m coping’ and obviously I wasn’t and I was in this spiral of ‘Why, why is it not working and what do I do next?’”

On entering the adoption process, Lisa said: “It’s not an easy step at all. It took a long time, it took years to get to that bit.

“I looked at surrogacy, I looked at all sorts of things, adoption overseas and in America.

“And it was actually my ex-husband, who is a great friend, who said to me ‘I don’t grow a baby, you hand me a baby and I love that baby, what would be the difference?’ And it was actually that thing that I thought ‘Yeah, what actually is the difference?’

“And I love my godchildren, I love my nieces, I love my friends, my family and that capacity to love, I thought ‘Well, that’s all you need to start it off.’”

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