Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon revealed their six-month-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe, for the first time to Barbara Walters on “20/20.”
The twins were born on the couple’s third wedding anniversary, after a difficult pregnancy.
I don’t think I understood the enormity and the magnitude of what it really does to your body,” Carey said. “Carrying two babies. Unless somebody’s been through it, it’s difficult to understand what I went through, because my pregnancy was very unique in terms of what happened to me.”
The public never knew about Carey’s long periods of bed rest, false labors and several emergency trips to the hospital.
Carey stressed that she feels blessed and thankful to have her babies, but acknowledged that late in her pregnancy she could barely move or get out of bed by herself.
“I had serious back problems,” she said. “I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to walk properly again. It was a huge strain.”
She carried the twins to 35 weeks gestation, and her song “Fantasy” was playing in the delivery room when Carey had her C-section.
“They came into the world to a live version,” she said, “and the only reason I wanted it to be the live version is because I wanted them to hear the applause upon entering the world.”
Both Cannon and Carey told Walters they could not be happier with their new family.
“My family gives me everything,” Cannon said. “Unconditional love means…the world to me. I mean, it’s completion.”
This Friday singer Mariah Carey will allow the public to see her twins for the first time on “20/20.”
Mariah and husband, Nick Cannon sat down with Barbara Walters in their New York apartment for an interview to discuss Mariah’s pregnancy, their marriage, and their twins Monroe and Moroccan.
The interview will air on ABC next Friday, October 21 at 10 p.m.
When Carey announced her pregnancy last fall, she revealed that she had been pregnant shortly after their marriage but had suffered a miscarriage.
The twins were born in May in Los Angeles, which was also Carey and Cannon’s third wedding anniversary—they renewed their vows the next day in a hospital ceremony conducted by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Berger said that Monroe was born first, weighing 5 pounds, 3 ounces and was 18 inches long. Moroccan was 5 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long.
Their son is named Moroccan Scott Cannon, because the top tier of Carey’s New York City apartment is called the Moroccan Room and this was where Cannon proposed to her. Scott is Cannon’s middle name and his grandmother’s maiden name.
Their daughter’s name is Monroe Cannon. She was named after Marilyn Monroe, who the singer has said was an inspiration to her throughout her life. Carey also owns the icon’s white piano and has put in her will that the piano will one day go to the Smithsonian.
She has already stated that she doesn’t plan on having any more children.
What do you do when the medical system fails you, your only 32, a fashion genius, intelligent, beautiful & dying because some of the best doctors do not know what is wrong with you?
Kristie Tunick experiences life with a body that can not touch hard surfaces or it paralyzes. Her story aired on 20/20 in August 2009 but producers have not followed up on her story. The segment left off with images of her dream wedding but instead she is lying in her bed fighting and waiting for a doctor that can save her life.
I have posted a blog post yesterday directly with the 20/20 article that they did on her life. Talking about her disease. However, we need more of you to make a difference.
Contact as many people, news channels, radio stations, blogs, websites, news papers, anyway that you feel that can get someone to notice this story!
We all need to stand united. What do you do when your health care system fails you? Who do we turn to for help!!!?
We all have a voice and the power to make things happen as a community. Let’s take a stand. There are many other’s that are out there dying because when you have no money or run out of money. You then are denied service.
Then you lose hope! You feel that your cause becomes a cause that has no voice!
The only thing left is to die. This has to stop. We need to take a stand for people who really need the help.
Please add Kristie Tunick to your facebook. She and her fiance do respond back to each and every person. She is really wanting the chance at life. Losing hope! Let’s give this young woman her life back and hope for a better outcome!
Here is my personal video of her story. As well as Kandee Johnson her favorite make up artist who first did the first youtube video informing many on her condition. Also to you can add Kandee Johnson on her youtube channel as well as facebook. Which many of us already have.
Kristie Tunick, 32, was determined to go to her future brother-in-law’s 2007 wedding, despite being ill for several years from stomach problems and an autoimmune condition that leaves her weak.
In the end, Tunick went and had a terrific time. But she paid for it later when her body became achy and stiff.
“We were getting ready to leave, but I felt so ill,” Tunick recalled. “It was one of the first times I felt really stiff. I thought it was due to the flu, that I was achy and so it was hard for me to move.”
But it wasn’t a simple case of flu. Soon after Tunick and her fiancé, Brian Mendenhall, returned to their home in southern Nevada, Tunick found she could not stand up and was having trouble breathing. Her doctor sent her to the emergency room.
“Once we got to the hospital, my body had locked up,” said Tunick, who had also gone into respiratory failure. “I was unable to move any limb of my body, exactly like a paraplegic. But it’s extremely painful. It feels like I’m laying on cement and somebody is crushing me down.”
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Tunick was experiencing the first of many episodes in which her muscles seized up painfully, a rare neurological condition known as Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS). Though the cause is unknown, SPS has features of an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks itself, setting off, in this case, muscle spasms. For some people with the condition, unexpected stimuli — such as loud noises and emotional distress — can trigger muscle spasms and falls. Because these stimuli are so prevalent in the outside environment, many SPS sufferers are afraid to leave their homes.
Loud noises do not trigger Tunick’s episodes. Rather, Tunick’s painful muscle spasms paralyze her anytime her body comes in contact with a hard surface, such as a chair or a hard bed. And the spasms can be severe.
“When you feel the muscles they’re really hard, like rocks,” said Dr. William Weiner, chairman of Neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “It’s a really abnormal feeling.”
Diagnosing Stiff Person Syndrome
Individually, the symptoms of SPS are not diagnostic, meaning they are often too general for doctors to be able to understand much of anything about what condition a patient might have.
And because the syndrome is so rare, it is often mistaken for a variety of musculoskeletal conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia or something of a psychosomatic nature.
“Sometimes people are mistaken for being neurotic or overly anxious,” Weiner said. “They complain of intermittent spasms, and doctors won’t recognize it.”
Weiner added that his clinic may only see one person with SPS every three or four years.
Challenges With Autoimmune Disease
Tunick struggled with autoimmune diseases for years prior to her first SPS episode. Gastroparesis, a disease that paralyzes the stomach muscles, forced her onto a liquid diet. She also suffers from Myasthenia Gravis, which makes her weak and leaves her with little control over her facial muscles.
She has undergone a number of surgeries in the quest to improve her health. She had her gallbladder removed in January 2006 to try and cure her gastroparesis but the operation made her condition worse and she began having long moments when she lost consciousness.
Following the disastrous episode after the wedding, Tunick was sent to UCLA, where neurologists gave her a possible diagnosis of SPS. But they were not able to do a complete work-up of her condition because she was five weeks pregnant.
“That shocked all of us,” Tunick said. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant [because of medications], and I was in pre-menopause.”
Tunick had an abortion. Then, for about five months between January and May 2008, she remained locked up, stiff and unable to move any of her limbs.
“I was a paraplegic, basically,” Tunick said. “[Afterwards] I went to rehab and had to relearn how to do everything, like a baby.”
Confusing Symptoms
Her physical inabilities have taken a frightening emotional toll on the couple.
“It scares Brian to think he’s going to walk into the house and find me dead,” Tunick said.
In addition, insurance companies have made diagnosing and attempting to treat Tunick’s various conditions a frustrating daily problem. In the past, her insurance providers have refused to fly her by helicopter to specialized treatment centers, discharged her from intensive care units while her muscles were still tensed, and prevented her from undergoing smaller procedures such as multiple endoscopies.
Paying For Treatment Proves Difficult
Tunick and Mendenhall are struggling now to raise enough money — they estimate that they need approximately $200,000 — to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., one of the premier centers for evaluating SPS. The couple is already burdened with costly hospital bills from the last few years of treatment.
Weiner said treating SPS is heavily dependent on the person, and there are no guaranteed therapies. The most common treatments include muscle relaxants such as diazepam or anti-epileptic drugs to control spasms, but some patients don’t like them because they cause drowsiness.
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Heaven On Earth 