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| Lisa Faulkner & Billie |
PUBLISHED: 22:30 GMT, 6 March 2013 | UPDATED: 21:31 GMT, 8 March 2013
For
years, Lisa Faulkner tried everything to conceive the baby she so badly
wanted. Round after round of costly IVF treatment wiped out the actress’s
savings and left her ‘a walking mess’ – all for nothing. The 41-year-old,
now the proud mother of an adopted daughter and dating MasterChef host John
Torode, has spoken of her struggle to start a family and the heartbreak
of failed IVF.
Miss Faulkner said: ‘It’s a really, really tough process. I don’t
think people have any idea until they go through it. ‘It’s not just the
physical stuff – it’s the emotions and the hormones that are pumping through
your body. ‘You’re on this whole trip of desperation for a baby and you’ll
do anything. I was determined that I would be a mother.’
She underwent four rounds of treatment, at a total cost of
£35,000. In an interview in The Lady magazine, she added: ‘I said I’d give IVF
three goes, and I ended up doing four. I spent all of my savings. But also
mentally, I couldn’t go through it again.’
Miss Faulkner, who starred in BBC show Holby City and won
Celebrity MasterChef in 2010, married actor Chris Coghill in 2005, three years
after they met on the set of the drama Burn It.
They began trying for a child, but she suffered an ectopic
pregnancy at six weeks which left her with only one working fallopian
tube. Miss Faulkner decided to seek private fertility treatment when she
was in her early-30s. She would have been eligible for free NHS treatment but
chose to pay to avoid long waiting lists.
During IVF, an egg is removed from a woman’s ovaries. It is
fertilised in a laboratory and returned to the womb. Private treatment can cost
£10,000. Miss Faulkner said: ‘Every day I was injecting myself [with
medication]. I was a walking mess of hormones – crying all the time. I was
emotional, sad and just desperate for it to work. It was
horrendous.’ Exhausted, the couple researched surrogacy before adopting
their daughter Billie in 2008 when she was 15 months old. She is now six.
Miss Faulkner, who presents a daily Channel 4 food show, What’s
Cooking?, added: ‘I wanted to be a mum for a very, very long time and I feel
very blessed that I finally am. ‘I love Billie so much and I want her to
have everything that she could possibly have.’
She and Coghill split in April last year and she began dating
Torode, 47, in October after they met on MasterChef.
She has spent time working at his Smiths of Smithfield restaurant
in London, and they appeared together on BBC1’s science series Food Factory.
IVF
wiped out my life savings and left me a mess, says TV star Lisa
Faulkner. Actress, 41, spent £35,000 on four rounds of unsuccessful
treatment. 'I was a walking mess,' said former Celebrity MasterChef
winner. Adopted daughter Billie in 2008 when she was 15-months-old . 'I
feel very blessed that I'm finally a mum' she said.
