EXCLUSIVE: 'You don't have control of things.' Liz Ellis on her experience with IVF, infertility, and miscarriage.

Content warning: This post includes discussion of pregnancy loss that may be distressing to some readers. 

Liz Ellis has shared her experiences with IVF in yet another open and honest conversation at the I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! campsite.

In an exclusive unaired clip shared with Mamamia, Ellis and her camp mates began talking about Ellis' books, including her third book If At First You Don't Conceive, about navigating infertility.

Ellis underwent five rounds for IVF before having her second child, Austin, in 2016.

"We did five rounds, and it was so expensive, and the little bastard came along naturally," she joked.

Watch: an exclusive clip of Liz Ellis talking about infertility on I'm A Celebrity. Post continues below video.

Ellis said the five six-week rounds look place over about a year.

During that time, she had multiple miscarriages. She and husband Matthew Stocks had the third tested and a genetic issue was found.

"My body did the audit and I miscarried," she said. 

"So then we were getting them tested, and the phone call is awful. They go 'Hi, it's so and so from the clinic, we've done the testing and it's come back and we have to let them succumb', and that's the wording they use. Basically, they just take them out of the freezer, let them thaw out and they dispose of them."

Ellis experienced secondary fertility after having daughter Evelyn in 2011, and after five rounds she and Stocks decided they were spending too much time 'focusing on the child they didn't have' that they were losing focus on her, so they stopped.

She naturally fell pregnant with Austin after this, but recalled not getting her hopes up because of her experience with miscarriage.

After doctors told her testing had found nothing wrong with the pregnancy, Ellis said she sobbed alone in a WA hotel room.

Earlier in the conversation, campmate Aesha Scott asked Ellis about her dark moments, citing conversations with friends who were going through IVF who spoke about feeling like they were "outside of their bodies".

"I don't think I realised that it can be so emotionally draining," Scott said.

"Yes, it's so draining," Ellis reflected. "I didn't ever get to that point but it's so lonely. Because you don't ever want to tell people you're doing it because in case you don't fall pregnant, you don't want to pity."

Image: Channel 10.

She said her sister had done IVF first, so Ellis had someone to talk to about the journey, but it was still a challenging time.

"They pump you so full of hormones and you get so bloated, that you don't have control of things. For me, I was trying to turn up and be happy on television, bloated, and I would have to travel with all of my medication and the stress of keeping it cold... so I can understand that feeling of being outside your body, because you just don't have control of so many of your emotions.

"It's a massive rollercoaster, and just having to get up every morning – I was putting three needles in, every morning."

Ellis said she learned through writing her books how to navigate the stresses that IVF can put on a relationship.

"Have the conversation about what it's going to be like before you start," she said. "Because when you're so hormonal it's really hard to say what you need. And so if you work out the words that you need beforehand – like, if I say to you 'I feel like sh*t', don't try to fix it."

She said "her thing" when she felt terrible was getting her husband to make her a cup of tea.

"I'd sit and have a cup of tea in silence and I'd feel so much better," she recalled.

Ian 'Dicko' Dickson asked Ellis why she believed conversations around fertility were still "awkward" for society to have.

"Miscarriage is an awkward conversation, there are not the words for it," she said.

"And IVF, I think is an awkward conversation because it's so all-compassing, the moment you start it, you're telling people you want to have kids and so people ask you all the time. There's all these awkward questions about it. So, I actually set out in the book 'here are some things you can say if people say this to you'."

Earlier in the season, Ellis and former Home and Away actor Debra Lawrance each shared their own experiences with miscarriage.

Lawrence said she lost four babies, including identical twin girls.

The pair were praised by viewers for being so open about a topic that is still often silenced.

Miscarriage support network Pink Elephants saw a 481 per cent increase in people accessing its emotional support content online after the episode.

The I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! finale airs 7.30pm on Sunday, April 30.

If this has raised any issues for you or if you would like to speak with someone, please contact the Sands Australia 24-hour support line on 1300 072 637. 

You can download Never Forgotten: Stories of love, loss and healing after miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death for free here.

Read more:

• 'He was 23.' The stories behind why the I'm A Celeb stars chose their charities.
• 'I don't want kids for ages.' The comment on I'm a Celebrity that brought Liz Ellis to tears.
• 'My role was to be the clown.' I'm A Celebrity's Aesha Scott on growing up with an alcoholic parent.
• 'I felt like I lost my personality.' A very candid convo about cosmetic procedures on I'm A Celeb.

Feature image: Channel 10.