The IVF road is such a one... I want to be that hand to hold for people who are going through it
ACTRESS AND FOODIE LISA FAULKNER TALKS TO HANNAH STEPHENSON ABOUT INFERTILITY, ADOPTION AND RELISHING HER BLENDED FAMILY WITH FIANCé JOHN TORODE
inside like a coiled spring, not much can help you,” she reflects now.
The knots of tension tightened when friends revealed they were pregnant, and much later on, when her sister told her she was expecting (again), she recalls yelling at her about the unfairness of life and then driving round the block and ringing her doorbell for a second round of screaming.
“To be shouting at somebody who wasn’t shouting back and is just devastated for you is really tough. I look back on that day and think that I was so wrapped up in me and couldn’t be happy for my sister. It was awful, a horrible way to feel.”
The last chance saloon was IVF, which she went into optimistically. But after three unsuccessful attempts, she was physically and emotionally spent. Her consultant told her as gently as he could that he was letting her go.
“He told me I was done emotionally, although he’s since told me it’s an implantation issue which they could probably cure. I accept it now. It’s laid to rest.”
It was only when Lisa realised she had reached the end of the road that she and Chris considered adoption and, after what seemed like an endless process of form-filling, social worker visits and general investigation into every aspect of their lives, they adopted a 15-month old girl, Billie, in 2008.
In the book, Lisa touches on the devastation she felt losing her own mother Julie to throat cancer at 16, when her mum was just 44, and wonders if her own deep yearning for children evolved as a result.
“I wonder if I have been trying to fill the huge gap left by her, to recreate something I was retrospectively lacking,” she writes.
She reveals that throughout the desperate times when conceiving was the only thing on her mind, her mental state was questionable.
Chris, she agrees, was endlessly patient, as his wife turned from a fun-loving actress who knew how to have a good time, into an anxious, mood-swinging neurotic whose only focus in life was to get pregnant.
“He was going through it, he wanted a child too. He was very patient and his attitude was, ‘Whatever is best for you we will do’.”
While there was a happy ending with adopting, the marriage ended in divorce in 2011, although they remain friends and co-parents. Chris lives nearby and sees Billie all the time, she says.
“I think we were under huge pressure. When you go through times of trying to have children, you either come out of it and you’re together, or you come out of it and you’re not. We were pretty much a shell.
“Now, we have a very good relationship. We knew that as a couple we were done, but as parents we are not and we won’t be done. We will look after Billie together. We are both her parents and she will not suffer and nor will we in that sense.
“I’m very grateful that we have such a strong relationship.”
Lisa is now focused on planning her upcoming wedding – and she says Billie is delighted she and John are tying the knot.
“She just wanted to know which dress she could wear. They get on very well. Billie is going to be my best woman.
“I don’t know if she’s going to say any words – we’re just talking about how it’s all going to work.”
Like many blended families, the couple, who have been together since 2012, didn’t rush into things.
“We took everything so very slowly. We introduced the children six months after we started going out with each other and then it was only for lunch. It was slow and centred around our children being OK.
“It was never about us. By the time we moved in together, it felt very normal.”
While she notes in the book that her slight hope of pregnancy will be with her until she hits the menopause, she also writes, ‘There’s a hole inside me that has never been filled’.
“That’s not just about being a mother,” she says now. “That hole is called grief. It’s about losing my mother. That’s what will always be there. The hole is filled up by my daughter and my family. Billie and I heal each other.
“She says to me, ‘Aren’t you pleased the IVF didn’t work?’, and I say, ‘Yes, I really am, because otherwise we wouldn’t have each other’.”