Actress Lisa Faulkner says failed IVF and ectopic pregnancy was ‘very dark time’

EastEnders and Holby City actress Lisa Faulkner has said undergoing three rounds of IVF and having a failed ectopic pregnancy was “a very dark time”.

The 52-year-old said “something happened overnight” which left her wanting a baby “so badly” and added that it was “so lonely” to find she was not becoming pregnant.

She told Good Housekeeping: “Those years were a very dark time.

“One minute I wasn’t that bothered about kids, apart from my nieces, and then something happened overnight and I wanted a baby so badly.

“All my peers were trying at the same time, so it was like we were swimming in the same pool, but they kept getting pregnant and climbing out until, eventually, I was still swimming in there alone.

“It was really lonely. When people would tell me they were pregnant I’d try to be fine, but I’d go home and be full of shame, anger and sadness.

“When I had IVF, it was with an amazing doctor with whom nine out of 10 patients got pregnant – and I was the one in 10 who didn’t. I thought ‘Why me?’ It was exhausting.”

She eventually adopted her daughter, Billie Coghill, now 18, when the youngster was 17 months old.

Faulkner said: “My daughter is my world, but adopting is a completely different ballgame in every way to conceiving a child.

“Even armed with every bit of knowledge you can find, it’s not easy, because you’re dealing with a child with trauma.

“It’s a trauma that will never, ever be healed, and my job is to be there to help make it better in every way I can. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself. It’s an ongoing process, it doesn’t stop.”

She said she took things slowly at the beginning of her relationship with TV chef husband John Torode because of her daughter.

“We went for dinner (on our first date) and it was just easy,” she said. “We had time to talk and really get to know each other and we got on brilliantly.

“We took things really slowly because of Billie, and also because I’d been through the end of a marriage – we had a child and I felt I’d failed in something I never wanted to fail at.

“I never give up on anything, so when you do have to accept that something didn’t work, starting a new relationship is a big leap of faith.”

Faulkner presents John And Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen alongside her husband on ITV, and the couple are also preparing to publish a cookbook together next month.

The actress also spoke about learning from her own grief after losing her mother when she was 16.

“When it’s immediate, it’s like a sick feeling you can’t get away from, and then you wake up one day and it’s a bit easier.

“You realise you can laugh about something they did or hear their voice without crying. And then, 20 years later, someone can ask you about it and you’ll feel this bubble rising up and you burst into tears. So it never really goes away.”

Faulkner began her acting career playing Alison Dangerfield in the BBC drama series Dangerfield, before going on to play Louise Hope in Channel 4’s Brookside and Victoria Merrick in Holby City, followed by Fi Browning in EastEnders.

She has gone on to build a career as a TV chef after winning Celebrity MasterChef in 2010.

– The full interview with Lisa Faulkner can be read in the October 2024 issue of Good Housekeeping, which is now on sale.