Jesy Nelson’s partner Zion Foster has broken his silence with a deeply emotional message of hope after the couple revealed their twin daughters have been diagnosed with a rare and life-limiting condition.
The former Little Mix star, 34, revealed earlier today that her eight-month-old twins, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe, have been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type 1 — a severe genetic neuromuscular disease that causes progressive muscle weakness and affects breathing, swallowing and movement.
Following Jesy’s tearful Instagram video, Zion shared a new photograph of their daughters lying side by side, breathing tubes gently placed in their noses. Alongside the image, the proud dad wrote that the girls were “smiling through the challenges,” before adding a simple but powerful line: “Daddy loves you so much.”
Jesy admitted the last few months have been “the most gruelling three or four months” of her life, explaining that doctors warned the twins are “probably never going to be able to walk or regain their neck strength,” meaning they will live with lifelong disabilities.
Fighting back tears, she explained that SMA “affects every muscle in the body — legs, arms, breathing and swallowing — and essentially, over time, it kills the muscles.” She revealed the twins were rushed into urgent treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital, stressing that without the treatment, “they will die.”
Jesy said the hospital has become her “second home,” adding that she has had to learn how to use breathing machines and perform medical procedures herself — “things no mother should ever have to do to their child.”
The singer, who endured a traumatic pregnancy complicated by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and spent 10 weeks in hospital before giving birth prematurely at 31 weeks, admitted she feels as though her life has “done a 360.”
“I almost feel like I’m grieving a life I thought I was going to have with my children,” she confessed. Still, Jesy remains determined, telling fans she truly believes her daughters will “defy all the odds with the right help and do things that have never been done.”