Mom Abandons Newborn with Dwarfism, Sees Her on TV as a Champion Athlete Years Later
- Ellie Simmonds was abandoned by her biological mother soon after her birth when she was diagnosed with dwarfism.
- She went on to be raised by a wonderful and loving adoptive family.
- Years later, she became a Paralympic champion and decided to search for her biological mom, not realizing that her mom had already recognized her from TV.
Ellie Simmonds was diagnosed with the most common type of dwarfism—achondroplasia—when she was born. She was raised in Walsall as the youngest of five by adoptive parents Steve and Val Simmonds. As a young girl, Ellie enjoyed horse riding and ballet until she found her true passion in swimming.
Once she started swimming at age five, Ellie became invested and enthralled in the sport. By the time she was eight years old, she was keeping up at the same level of pace as that of her able-bodied counterparts.
Five years later, when Simmonds was thirteen, she competed in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing and won her first two gold medals for Britain, marking her as a national hero.
In 2020, Ellie decided to retire from sports and focus on tracing her roots back to her origins. She began to embark on her life story journey, as documented by ITV, which filmed “Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family.” Throughout her in-depth analysis of her story, Ellie investigated the sometimes painful and complicated relationship between adoption and disability.
Her desire to seek out the uncharted elements of her past came from her quest to look for her birth parents. Ellie reasoned that after she had retired from competing, she found herself with more time and space that allowed for such an inquiry to come to fruition:
“I’d achieved everything I wanted to… All my life, I’ve had so many questions, and I’ve often wondered if my birth mum looks like me.”
Ellie Simmonds Embarks on a Quest to Find Her Biological Mother
In addition to her desire to meet her biological mother, Ellie expressed being at a point in her life where she was considering settling down with her partner, Matt Dean. Dean also has dwarfism and was a childhood friend of Ellie’s.
Throughout Ellie’s journey, she learned about some surprising revelations about the lack of awareness about her disability and the systemic bias set against it.
Among these revelations came the discovery that despite having given birth to a daughter without dwarfism and being reassured by medical professionals of her daughter’s normalcy while Ellie was still in utero, her birth mother was still convinced that something was amiss.