I was diagnosed as being infertile when I was 21 and it was then that I decided I desperately wanted children. They did several trials to help me conceive but nothing worked, then at 40 I had a hysterectomy because they had found growths. I now have five adoptive children: Sabrina, 30, Akpene, 28, Prince, 25, Lulu, 20, and Francis, 13. Our family is unconventional and tied together by links of love instead of blood; we are family by choice instead of biology. I adopted the two youngest with my partner at the time but he doesn’t live with us anymore.

It’s strange that I have so many children because I’m not baby-mad, I never was; I didn’t play with dolls when I was little. But that’s what makes me different to other adoptive parents. Most people want to adopt babies under the age of two but I adopted all of mine when they were much older. The reality in the world is that there aren’t that many healthy babies up for adoption and it was important to me that I only adopted children I could prove had no other option. I don’t agree with people adopting children from mothers who have been paid to become pregnant.

I was in care myself, as a little girl. My father disappeared when I was four, he ran away, and after that I was fostered for a year. I would spend the school year with my mum and holidays with my foster family. They adopted children, so I had siblings, but I was my birth mother’s only child. Being surrounded by adopted children meant I was always familiar with this notion, which is perhaps why I went on to adopt. One of the concepts we have of parenthood is that our children belong to us but I don’t think that’s true – you do the best you can for them but the actual gauge of success is how well you let them go.

I was still working in the fashion business when I decided I wanted to adopt, and I was very young: 23, working as an editor for Vogue in Paris. Five-year-old Sabrina was living next door to me and we developed a friendship. A social worker later informed me about her family situation (her mother had passed away, her father was an alcoholic, her carers were about to be evicted) and offered me the opportunity to become her foster parent.

Everyone I was working with advised me against it, telling me it would ruin my life; that I was too young to have such a dependent child. But I went ahead anyway. I later adopted her and we lived together in Paris, taking holidays to Morocco to visit her birth family. I felt empowered by my decision to leave the fashion industry.

When she was an adolescent, Sabrina told me she wanted to go to Africa to do some voluntary work. I decided to go with her, we packed our bags and that was that. So I adopted Sabrina through the social welfare system in France and I later adopted my other four children in Ghana.It’s actually very difficult to adopt here if you’re not a resident. Part of the work I do with my charity, OAfrica, is to encourage and support the government to make adoption more controlled. I’m all for this. It sounds odd but I’m not a huge fan of adoption, the issue being that it is used for child trafficking. So I always ask if there is any way the child can stay with their family, if the answer’s no – we look for other options.

After leaving the fashion industry, I had money that could make a difference so I decided to serve as opposed to just ‘being’. I bought houses when I was wealthier so rent from those properties supports some of the charity work I do now, then I write the odd story for AD magazine. But I really work full time in philanthropy.

Life in Ghana with my children has been very happy. When they were growing up, we had a very long table and we’d congregate around it every day – listening to music, tussling, teasing, joking and cooking. Unfortunately, my house burnt down – an arson attack – but in our new house, we also have a long table. We obviously have different backgrounds: I grew up in Spain and Italy, the kids grew up in Ghana, Morocco – various places – so we travelled as much as possible to their birth locations. We’ve done a good job of that – reaching out to find surviving family members.

Having so much responsibility has been difficult at times – it’s a lot of work. I have felt overwhelmed. They are grown up now but when they were in college I felt the financial pressure. That’s always been the most difficult thing for me. However, children who are brought up in Africa are a bit more obedient than children brought up in the West, which makes it easier to rally the troops as there’s that whole sibling pressure thing – the older siblings imposing discipline on the younger ones. In Ghana, high value is placed on being well behaved.

There is a huge difference between their ages, which in some ways makes it easier but it also means I’ve been parenting for a long time. But they all seem very happy, they are all brothers and sisters and they are very proud of our family; they feel that they’ve really been part of something exceptional and that our family is the coolest in the world.

‘Who Knows Tomorrow: A Memoir of Finding Family Among the Lost Children of Africa’ by Lisa Lovatt-Smith is published by Weinstein Books, £17.99. Also available on Kindle and as an audio book. amazon.co.uk