Ellie Simmonds has been hailed after her ITV documentary Should I Have Children? aired on ITV1 last night.
The hour-long show followed Ellie as she spoke to experts and parents of disabled children, after being given up by her birth mother for adoption after she was told she had dwarfism.
In the powerful documentary, Ellie was seen getting emotional as she spoke to her birth mum on the phone. And not everyone was as forgiving as Ellie, who has decided to let her birth mum back into her life.
Paralympian Ellie Simmonds reconnects with birth mum in documentary
Ellie Simmonds admitted that she felt a little anxious before calling her birth mum on the phone. During the call, she asked her birth mum why she decided to give her up for adoption.
The woman, whose identity has been protected, told Ellie: “We went to a geneticist and she was very abrupt, said: ‘There you go, that’s what your baby is going to look like.” I remember coming back thinking, I can’t cope with this.”
Speaking about her mindset after giving birth, when she made the decision, the woman added: “You’re physically not right, you’re mentally not right, it’s a hard time to make a decision about anything. There was a lot in the background going on. I’d given birth on my own.”
Ellie’s birth mother then shared that her daughter’s disability became “all she could see”. She added: “I grieved the child that I thought you should have been. It was absolutely horrendous. I left you and you were my baby. I just handed you over.”
Breaking down in tears, she confessed: “’’’”
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