Lisa Faulkner - Meant to Be: Embracing my Plan B and finding a different path to family

Lisa Faulkner is a bestselling cookery author, actor and TV presenter. Lisas first book was published in 2012 and was a Sunday Times bestseller, and she has subsequently written 3 other cookery books. Meant to Be is her first narrative title. Lisa is has been seen on some of the countrys favourite TV series including Spooks, Holby City and Eastenders, and can regularly been found cooking on shows like This Morning and Saturday Kitchen as well as presenting for Channel 4, The Food Network, Childrens BBC & Channel 5. Lisa lives in North London with her partner and daughter.

To my daughter Billie.

And to you, the reader, I hope I provide a hand to hold and a sigh of relief that there is no right or wrong on the sometimes bumpy path to motherhood. Whatever route you take will lead you to where youre meant to be.

There is a hole in the sky

Where the light falls through

Where the whole of me

Is the whole of you

Lemn Sissay MBE

My sister and I pulled up into the large grey car park of the Mothercare superstore. She was six months pregnant and her perfect bump was now properly showing; she looked radiant.

It was raining and cold, but not even the weather could dampen my excitement. Today we were going shopping for baby things, but instead of it being for her child, this time it was for me. It was for my baby and I could hardly believe it was finally happening. My time had finally arrived and I was going to Embrace it with a capital E!

This was the first time in a long while that Id allowed myself to feel happy, to actually feel the joy. Yes, I felt trepidation at what was to come; after all, I was shopping for a toddler I had never met. I knew I would always feel a slight pang that I wasnt there as a pregnant person, that I hadnt managed to grow a baby, but essentially I had made my peace with it. I had done as much mental preparation as I could possibly do and I was truly excited to take this next step into motherhood, my own unique way of mothering. So for now, I gave myself over to this moment. I took a deep breath and smiled. I deserved to enjoy this.

My sister Victoria was beside herself too, so happy to finally be able to share in my joy. For what had seemed like an eternity, shed listened to me as I cried at my failure to become a mother. Shed sat up late into the night with me and talked on the phone for hours, feeling frustrated that she couldnt do anything to make it better. It had been so hard to watch her fall pregnant for the third time at the drop of a hat, and I remember storming out of her house when she told me her happy news, screaming at her about the unfairness of it all. It had taken a long time and a lot of soul searching to adjust my frame of mind and be OK with doing things a different way and, through all of this, my sister had stood firmly beside me, holding my hand.

All her own baby stuff had been bought and confidently put away in drawers after two textbook conceptions and pregnancies, but, finally, here she was for me, and pregnant for a third time herself. I had a list as long as my arm of things I needed and, although I had a budget, now I was here, I had a feeling that was going straight out the window.

We walked through the doors into the heady bright lights and the warmth of the shop and, as my sister grabbed a trolley, I took in the scene around me. The place was full of women. There were a few men shuffling around, looking uncomfortable, but mainly all I could see were women in different phases of pregnancy, along with dozens of toddlers tearing around and babies wrapped snuggly in their buggies. It was a shop full of hope and life nothing special to most of the people in it, but to me it was heaven on earth.

I had spent years leafing through baby catalogues for childrens clothes, buying outfits in Baby Gap for the newborn babies of close friends, desperate for it to be my turn, always with my heart in my mouth and a tear threatening to escape. I felt I was doomed to be always the godmother.

It had taken me so long to get here, years of hoping and praying. Years of having sex at the right time, and then being heartbroken when my period arrived. Years of weeing on sticks, of having injections, of feeling like a failure when the blue line didnt magically appear. It had been a long, hard road of self-discovery and yet, even though I was at the end, it still wasnt exactly as I had planned. OK, I would never be full bellied and blooming, but I knew I would eventually be all right.

As I stood in that shop with my list, I was aware I had a long journey ahead of me, a different journey from all my friends and family, but a journey nonetheless, and it was mine. I was headed straight for the toddler aisles, shopping for a little girl I had not yet met, and one that I didnt know if I would get to keep. I took a deep breath, and smiled. I was apprehensive and scared, but as I kept telling myself, this was my day and I was determined to make the most of it.

Its very strange shopping for a child you dont know though in many ways I suppose its exactly the same as shopping for a newborn. You have no idea of its personality and all you can do is pick the stuff that catches your eye. Here is a good time to say that I had never thought of myself as a girlie girl. In my daydreams, my babys nursery was white and clean with lots of different colours, but as I went to buy bedding and buggies, everything that caught my eye was pink! A pink changing mat, a pink and grey buggy, pink duvet set, pink cot bumpers, pink pink pink! I caught my sister staring at me, open mouthed, out of the corner of my eye.

What? I said.

Nothing. Just didnt ever see you as that sort of mum, all pink and fluffy! But enjoy!

I grinned back.

As I picked out sleep suits and dummies and plates and spouty cups, chatting away to my sister about what bottles would be best and discussing whether my little girl would need shoes, my insecurities began to surface.

What if we dont get to keep her? I said anxiously.

Weve been through this. If you dont keep her, you will have given her stability, love, warmth and security when she needed it most. She can take all these things with her and you will have helped her so much.

Yes, I sighed. Youre right. Thank God for you.

Victoria had been my rock throughout this long adoption path, even agreeing to go on all the adoption courses for friends and family. It had been a real eye-opener for her. We had all been told what to expect, what to do and say and, more importantly, what not to say. The main thing was never to give false hope to either the parents who were adopting, or the child coming into the family. It was drummed into us that we had to deal in absolutes, and yet there was nothing certain about any part of the process and I had already suffered so much disappointment. I was only just getting my head around all of this and it meant so much that she was next to me, supporting me through everything. My wonderful sister, with her words of encouragement, so desperate for me to be happy and to have my chance to be a mum.