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MICHELLE OBAMA SAYS she felt “lost and alone” after suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and underwent in vitro fertilisation to conceive her two daughters.

She tells ABC News in an interview aired on Good Morning America that she felt like she failed.

“I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them,” Obama said.

The former first lady, 54, says she and former President Barack Obama “had to do IVF” to conceive Sasha and Malia, now 17 and 20.

In her memoir Becoming, set to come out Tuesday, she writes openly about everything from growing up in Chicago to confronting racism in public life and becoming the country’s first black first lady.

She also reflects on early struggles in her marriage as Obama began his political career and reveals that the couple went to marriage counselling.

Obama was asked why she decided to be open about it their marriage difficulties.

“For those young people out there who think that marriage is supposed to be easy,” she responded. 

“Marriage counselling for us was one of those ways where we learned how to talk out our differences.”

“What I learnt about myself was that my happiness was up to me,” she added.

- With reporting by Rónán Duffy