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My battle to become a Mum

  Television presenter Anna Walker, who's appearing in BBC1's Garden Invaders, lives in South-West London with her husband Will Herrington, 35, a company director, and their 16-monthold son, Sean.

In the past seven years, Anna has had two ectopic pregnancies and two miscarriages, and turned to IVF before Sean was born.

Two months ago, on her 40th birthday, Anna suffered her third ectopic pregnancy, which went undetected and nearly cost her her life. Here, she tells us of her long battle to have the children she craves.

Most of us find turning 40 a bit of an ordeal - but for me, the experience was particularly difficult.

For not only did I lose the baby I was unaware I was carrying, but I also almost lost my life. What's more, I have certainly lost any chance I had of conceiving any more babies naturally.

The pregnancy was ectopic, which is when the fertilised egg becomes implanted outside the womb - typically in the fallopian tube that connects the ovary to the womb. This can trigger life-threatening bleeding.

Doctors were able to save me - but only at the expense of the fallopian tube in which the embryo was stuck. Usually, this wouldn't matter, because women can still get pregnant as long as one ovary is connected to the womb. Sadly, I had already lost my other fallopian tube in an earlier ectopic pregnancy.

In fact, this last pregnancy has been my third ectopic. Compared with many of the challenges I have faced in life, starting a family has proved to be by far the hardest.

Certainly, my life before babies was charmed. I had a great job as a television presenter that allowed me to visit places all over the world for travel and adventure programmes. I've tried bungee jumping, white-water rafting and sky diving. I've travelled down the Zambezi River in Africa in a canoe.

I met my husband, Will, on a Wish You Were Here trip to Canada about ten years ago. He proposed a year later, and before long we were married. We couldn't wait to start a family, and began trying for a baby about 18 months after the wedding.

Will and I both come from large families, so we were desperate to create a large and loving brood of our own. I was 33 and never questioned that our dreams would come true in the most natural and easy way.

It took a couple of years, but in 1997 I fell pregnant. I didn't realise at first, as even though my period was late, the pregnancy tests were still showing negative. It was only when a little abnormal bleeding occurred and I did another test that it came up as positive. I was ecstatic.

But even though it was my first pregnancy and I didn't really know what to expect, my instinct kept telling me that something wasn't right. I voiced these feelings to my GP, who did a blood test to assess how the pregnancy was progressing.

While a urine test can tell you whether or not you are pregnant by detecting the pregnancy hormone HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) - which is released into the bloodstream four days after you become pregnant - a blood test allows doctors to measure how much HCG is present. This way, doctors can tell whether the pregnancy is progressing normally.

With an ectopic pregnancy, HCG levels may not be high enough to be detected, so a urine test may give a negative result. The blood test is more sensitive and can detect the HCG hormone.

Because my blood test was positive, my GP sent me to an early pregnancy unit in London for an ultrasound scan which can locate the embryo sac. By this time, I was six weeks' pregnant.

However, the scan revealed that my womb was empty. This meant that the developing embryo had to be elsewhere - and was probably in my fallopian tube. I was rushed to the Lister Hospital in Chelsea for surgery the same

If it had been left, the embryo would have 'eaten' its way through my fallopian tube to get to blood vessels on the outside, which would have caused a rupture and massive internal bleeding. Unusually, the surgeon managed to save my fallopian tube - but this is rare.

Physically and emotionally, I recovered very quickly, and the surgeon was so encouraging that both Will and I saw no reason not to be optimistic about having a child.

Four months later, I had a miscarriage at six weeks. Initially, it did cross my mind that maybe I was working too hard, but a miscarriage is common and not a huge setback.

Then, almost a year after the first ectopic, it happened all over again. My period was slightly late, so I did a pregnancy test that showed up as negative. A week later, when I started to bleed a little, alarm bells began to ring.

I did another pregnancy test and this one was positive. In a state of panic, I rushed to the early pregnancy unit in London's Harley Street.

The nurse there thought that I was still in the first month of pregnancy and everything was fine. She did a scan and saw nothing unusual. I left feeling reassured - though, just to be on the safe side, I was asked to return for another scan the next week. This second scan revealed that my pregnancy was again ectopic. I was six weeks' pregnant and the embryo had lodged itself in the same tube.

I was devastated. I was rushed in for another emergency operation at the Lister Hospital - but this time the surgeon couldn't save my fallopian tube. Dealing with it all over again was very hard. I had the same sense of loss as with a miscarriage, but with the added upset of an operation.

In spite of everything, I never gave up hope that we would have our own children. I still had one healthy tube, so conceiving naturally was viable.

But after yet another miscarriage, Will and I decided to try IVF (in-vitro fertilisation). Not only is this an expensive option, costing anything from £3,500 to £5,000, it is also a huge emotional and physical strain.