EastEnders’ Suki and Eve Unwin-Panesar (Balvinder Sopal and Heather Peace) face a huge hurdle that threatens to seriously derail their adoption journey next week.

The fan-favourite couple have had a rocky few months, as Suki’s secret plan to raise her teenage granddaughter Avani Nandra-Hart’s (Aaliyah James) unborn baby as her own tore them apart over the summer.

Since she hadn’t exactly been mum of the year to her four grown-up children, Suki became drawn to the idea of getting a second chance at parenting.

Eve never wanted kids, but she eventually accepted the idea after being persuaded despite her reservations.

However, all hell broke loose when Avani’s parents Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) and Priya Nandra-Hart (Sophie Khan-Levy) learned the truth, and Suki and Eve broke up after Eve accompanied Avani to have an abortion.

Recent weeks have seen they finally fall back into each other’s arms, and Eve dropped the bombshell that she wanted to have kids with Suki after all.

It seemed as though the tables had turned somewhat though, with Suki appearing concerned at the idea of adoption and only going along with it as a way to reconcile with her wife.

Next week, Eve’s hopes of adopting hit a bump in the road thanks to her complicated family history.

Eve never wanted kids, but someone eventually talked her around to the idea despite her reservations.

The meeting eventually goes ahead and is a surprise success – however, Eve panics when she later learns that she will need a reference from her mum to proceed.

Fans of the BBC soap know that Eve became estranged from her parents after the death of her twin sister as a young adult, as well as their refusal to accept Eve coming out as a lesbian.

Suki’s evil ex-husband Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry) briefly reunited the mum and daughter off-screen in Yorkshire last year when he brutally attacked Eve’s mum in a ploy to get her out of the way so he could split Eve and Suki up.

With old wounds still raw, will Eve be able to ask her mother for what she needs to make her own parenting dream a reality?