It’s such a challenging situation (Picture: ITV)

There are unexpected guests for Christmas dinner at Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) and Marlon Dingle’s (Mark Charnock) house in Emmerdale this year, and emotions will be running high.

Rhona recently discovered that her former husband, Gus Malcolms (Alan McKenna), had secretly used some embryos which he and Rhona had frozen when they were married and having IVF.

Gus stole Rhona’s passport so he could get access to the embryos even though she denied him permission to use them with his wife Lucy.

When Lucy died shortly after giving birth to baby Ivy, Gus was devastated. As for Rhona, her anger gave way to other emotions as soon as the baby was born.

‘She’d moved on and she’d never really given a backward glance and I imagine thought, “Well those embryos will have gone,”’ Zoe Henry explained to Metro.co.uk.

‘So to suddenly be confronted with it, how could you not want to go and see what’s going on and to meet her? And of course, once you see her, how are you going to step away from that?’

We’ve already seen Rhona unable to stay away from visiting the baby in hospital, and this leads to Mary (Louise Jameson) taking action.

Rhona is Ivy’s biological mother (Picture: ITV)

‘Rhona’s mum, in a bid to keep Rhona away, has said “You need to focus on your children and your husband and you need to stay away from Ivy, so I will go and make sure Gus is coping,”’ Zoe told us.

‘So that’s the agreement they come to and then very suddenly just before Christmas Mary turns up at Smithy Cottage with Gus and Ivy in tow because they are really not coping. The baby’s got bad nappy rash and Mary just goes, “I don’t know what to do.”’

So Gus and Ivy end up staying for Christmas, which is difficult all around – although Zoe told us that the situation is far simpler for Rhona than for the rest of the family.

‘I go back to that primal instinct and I think that’s what Rhona has,’ she explained. ‘That feeling of knowing that your baby, something that you’re connected to – that’s what Rhona wants, is to hold her and to look after her. Her instinct is so strong, even though she didn’t carry this child, even though it’s buried in her past 15 years ago.’

Although Mary and Marlon caution Rhona to be realistic – the baby is Gus’s and as soon as he’s able to cope better they’ll be leaving – that isn’t how she sees it.

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‘I think the dream would be for Ivy to live with her and for Gus to disappear in a puff of smoke but that’s not going to happen, is it?’ Zoe speculated.

‘And I don’t think she would dare admit that to herself either, or to anyone. I think there’s a scene with Mary where she tentatively says that’s what she wants but it’s one of those things where she doesn’t really want to say it out loud. But that’s the dream.’

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The storyline has sparked a huge discussion.