Jesy Nelson has shared a powerful message to her twin daughters, who were recently diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), as she launched her new documentary
Jesy Nelson has announced the release of her new Amazon Prime documentary. The documentary will focus on Jesy’s meteoric rise to fame with Little Mix, embarking on a solo career, and most recently, becoming a first-time mother.
Posting on Instagram, the former Little Mix star said: “Isn’t it crazy how the universe works, and how it’s all divine timing? Last year, I decided that when I fell pregnant, I wanted to document everything. I wanted to let cameras into my life and my home, and film what I thought was going to be a really exciting, fun little experience into motherhood that me and my girls could one day sit down and watch back for memories when they are older.
“But little did I know the journey I was about to embark on. From being told I was having twins, to then finding out I had TTTS, a rare condition that affects only a small percentage of identical twins and that my babies’ survival rate was next to nothing without treatment, to then living in hospital for three months, having my babies early, and being on the neonatal ward for over a month. Bringing them home honestly felt like a dream, like we were finally out of the trenches.
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“It has honestly been one of the hardest, most painful times in my life that I’ve ever had to go through, let alone document. I’m so incredibly proud of this docu-series, and I cannot wait for my fans, and for everyone who has followed my journey, to see this.
“I’ll be completely honest… I’ve only ever watched this series once because it’s genuinely too emotional for me to watch right now. But when I did watch it, I saw everything through a completely different lens, now knowing what I know about my girls and their diagnosis. Nobody could have ever prepared me for what was about to come when I started filming.
“But one thing I do know when watching it is how incredibly proud I am of my girls, and how utterly inspiring they are; from their resilience, their strength, their constant fight, and their sheer happiness that they show me day in, day out. There may well come a time in the near future when my beautiful girls turn to me and say, ‘Mummy, I don’t think I can do that,’ and if that day ever comes, I’ll sit them down in front of the TV and play them this footage. And I’ll turn to them and say, ‘My darlings, you CAN and you WILL!!!’
It’s been an eventful week for Jesy, who met with Health Secretary Wes Streeting to demand newborn screening for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) after her twins were diagnosed late.
The Mirror is campaigning for a simple £5 check for SMA to be added to the NHS newborn heel prick test – so babies can be treated and effectively cured before irreversible nerve damage is done in the first weeks of life. Most developed nations already test for SMA at birth.
In a meeting filmed by ITV’s This Morning, Jesy said: “Why did it have to take me to come along with a platform for people to take this seriously?”
Mr Streeting responded: “That is a fair question and my inbox has been full of families in a similar position. People are so grateful to you.”
In an emotional conversation with Mr Streeting, Jesy said: “It’s just madness to me that we are living in a day and age now where we have got three treatments that are life changing, and it’s still not part of the heel prick test.
“There’s going to be so many more babies that are going to be diagnosed with this and so many families that are going to have to experience what I’m going through right now when it doesn’t need to be happening.”
Mr Streeting responded: “That’s the pressure I feel, because it could have been so different. If you’ve got an earlier diagnosis.”
Earlier this month, Jesy revealed her twins, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe – who she shares with rapper Zion Foster – had been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1. Fighting back tears, the singer said: “I am grieving a life I thought I was going to have with my children.”
SMA causes floppiness in the limbs, difficulty breathing and swallowing as well as delayed motor skills. Jesy said her life has been turned upside down and she is now acting as a nurse to her girls by “putting them on breathing machines and doing stuff that no mother should have to do with their child.”
The star first went to her GP after her mum noticed the twins were not moving as much as they should. Having been advised that the babies will show slower development as they were premature, Jesy said she told herself not to “compare them” to other babies of the same age. After the twins were struggling to feed, Jesy pushed for her answers and her daughters were diagnosed with SMA Type 1.
It was then reported she’d split from Zion, with both parents focusing on the welfare of their children. A source told The Sun: “She and Zion remain friends and are fully focused on their daughters. They are fully united in co-parenting. Their priority continues to be the well-being of their daughters.”
The split comes just months after Jesy and Zion revealed they were engaged. In September last year, they took to social media to reveal the rapper had popped the question and the Boyz singer had said yes.
Source: Mirror
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