IN the 18 months they’ve been together Jess Impiazzi and Jermaine Pennant have faced an ADHD diagnosis, bankruptcy and the death of her dad.
Now the couple have a new battle after Jess was told she is going through early menopause — at the age of just 34 and will struggle to have children.
The devastating diagnosis, which has left her “heartbroken”, comes after she paid to go private following a three-year battle with the local medical practice who dismissed her symptoms as stress.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, the actress reveals she and former footballer Jermaine, 40, have been forced to hit the accelerator on their relationship and attempt to start a family through IVF treatment.
Jess says: “I have always wanted to have a family so to be told the chances of having my own children are slim is heartbreaking. We had talked about kids but we haven’t even been together for two years and assumed we had more time.
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Brain fog and anxiety
“After the tough times we’ve had since we met, this felt like we’d been thrown into a whirlwind.”
While having a baby this early in their relationship wasn’t part of their plan, Jermaine says he will be with Jess every step of the way.
The ex-Liverpool and Stoke star says: “I understand how much she wants to have a family. Time is of the essence so all I can do is be her support and do whatever I can to make the journey possible.”
While she is determined to stay positive, Jess says she feels “let down” by GPs who failed to investigate her symptoms over a three year period, despite numerous appointments, and insisted the problem was all in her head.
She says: “If I’d known what was wrong three years ago I’d have made different choices. I could have had my eggs frozen, but that’s taken away from me. I felt let down by the healthcare system.”
Jess, who recently starred in the JK Rowling TV drama Strike, has known Jermaine for years and they started dating in September 2021. Jermaine, who was declared bankrupt this year after blowing a £10million fortune, recently moved into Jess’s Surrey flat.
And she encouraged him to talk to a therapist, who diagnosed him with ADHD last year.
Jess’s own journey to a diagnosis began at 30, when she began to miss periods and suffer irregular heavy bleeding, to the point where she couldn’t get out of bed. It was then that a doctor put it down to stress. She began to experience fatigue, night sweats, brain fog and anxiety.
She says: “I kept going back and bugging them with my symptoms.
“One doctor gave me an internal examination but I was convinced it was something hormonal, and I couldn’t understand why my bloods weren’t being tested for that.”
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At one point she was booking a doctors’ appointment every two months, desperate to get to the root cause of the problem, but she felt she was being dismissed.
She says: “The symptoms were getting worse. My emotions were all over the place but I began to think I was a hypochondriac. I felt like a pain in the a*** for the NHS and thought my doctor must hate me.”
The former Celebrity Big Brother contestant — who grew up with domestic violence in the family, lost a 13-month-old nephew to meningitis at 17 and quit her acting degree when mum Debbie suddenly went blind — knew it was more than stress.
She added: “First they told me it was lockdown stress then, when my dad passed away in July 2022, they put it down to that.”
Jess decided to fork out £2,000 for tests at Surrey Park Clinic, which specialises in fertility and hormonal problems.
Within a week she was diagnosed with endometriosis on her bowels, which caused heavy bleeding, and primary ovarian insufficiency, which affects just one per cent of women under 40 and means the follicles on the ovaries, which produce eggs, are not working.
Instead of the usual six to 15 on each ovary, Jess has just three functioning follicles on one, cutting her chances of conceiving.
The news left her in deep shock.
She recalls: “I shut down as the doctor was telling me, trying not to cry. But then I got in the car and broke down in tears. I came home and cried solidly for about three days and Jermaine was crying as well because he could see how heartbroken I was.
“I told him, ‘I think they’ve just told me I’m infertile’, but I couldn’t quite get my head around it because of the shock.
Medical gaslighting
“I was scared to say to Jermaine, ‘I want a family and we have to do it now’. We had a lot going on and I was concentrating on building my acting career, so we were hoping to wait a couple of years.”
Told she would have less than a year to conceive, they were advised to try naturally for a month before starting the treatment.
She recalls: “We went skiing for my birthday in March and I was using ovulation sticks to find the right time, saying ‘Get in the bedroom, now!’”
When that didn’t work the pair decided to attempt IVF — which costs around £7,000 a cycle — and are awaiting results of initial tests.
Jess has been warned the process is usually carried out on five to eight eggs in order to maximise the chance of healthy ones. As she can only produce three, the odds are dramatically reduced.
She says: “I won’t be able to have multiple children, and this is really my only chance to have a biological child.”
Early menopause also puts women at risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and early dementia, yet fiercely positive Jess says she is dealing with her future in three stages.
She explains: “I’ll start with the IVF with my eggs and if that doesn’t work we will look for egg donors. After that I’ll look at what medication I’ll be on for the rest of my life, to ensure that I don’t get the associated illnesses.”
While the couple may have been rushed into trying for a family, anyone spending time with them can see they are clearly in love and Jermaine — who has a 12-year-old son from a previous relationship — is backing Jess all the way.
The couple share a similar background. Both had traumatic childhoods with dads in the grip of addiction, both went off the rails in their 20s — Jess with drink and Jermaine blowing his cash on fast cars, £25k bar bills and even a £1.2million house he forgot he owned — and both have been through divorce.
Jess split with rugby player Denny Solomona after a 15-month marriage in 2017 and Jermaine parted from wife of six years Alice Goodwin in 2020.
Now Jess believes their double diagnoses are another bond.
She says: “This has brought us closer together but also Jermaine’s diagnosis meant I had to understand him, so I did a lot of research on ADHD. I feel so solid with him because we really have each other’s backs. We’re each other’s rock and whatever goes wrong, he’s going to hold me up.”
Jess, who is about to start filming Amazon comedy All About Casey, is speaking out about her experience because she wants other women to stand their ground when they feel they are not being listened to by doctors.
She says: “What I went through is medical gaslighting, being told there’s nothing wrong with you when you know there is. If I’d listened to my GP and left it another year I’d never have a chance to try for my own child.
“I hope by talking about what happened to me I can encourage women to stick to their guns and demand to be heard if they feel they are not being taken seriously.
“We know our bodies so when something’s not right, don’t be brushed off as paranoid or crazy.”
