‘Sopranos’ Alum Jamie-Lynn Sigler Gets Candid About Motherhood With Multiple Sclerosis

Sopranos alum Jamie-Lynn Sigler is opening up about the challenges of being a mother with multiple sclerosis.

In an emotional essay for Shondaland.com published on Monday, Sigler, who portrayed Meadow Soprano from 1999 until 2007, detailed how the incurable disease has affected the way she parents her two sons – Jack Adam, 14-months, and Beau Kyle, 5.

Sigler had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 17 years ago, though she kept her diagnosis a secret until 2016.

“When I learned I was pregnant with my first son, Beau, six years ago, I was terrified,” she wrote. “All of a sudden, I had to think about how my MS would affect someone else. (I say this, because my husband has made me feel since day one that this disease had no negative effect on us as a couple.) But with my son, his safety depended on me! His survival!”

Sigler, who shares Beau and Jack with husband Cutter Dykstra, added that her anxiety over being able to properly care for her children led her to have a serious conversation with Dykstra.

“I even, sadly, had to have the talk with my husband about what we’d do in the worst of circumstances, where I thought out loud: If there ever was a mass shooting, you have to take the kids and run, and trust I will do my best to stay safe,” she said. “Just thinking about this still makes me tear up.”

“MS — any chronic illness, really — becomes your whole family’s disease, not just your own,” she wrote. “It affects our daily choices, and while sometimes I resent that, it has also made me see how strong I am.”

“I walk Jack every day in his stroller, around the block, no matter how long it takes me. I take Beau to hockey and karate and baseball, and sit on my chair and cheer him on,” she continued. “I am definitely participating in life the way I always dreamed, but it’s not without challenges.”

Despite the challenges she faces and her fears of “not being enough,” Sigler added that she is dedicated to and confident that she can be the mother she always wanted to be.

“My body can ache, and not do the things I want it to do, but in the face of the daily fears that I have of not being enough, my two little boys give me all the love and reassurance I’ll ever need,” Sigler concluded. “They only know this one mommy. They don’t ask why I move the way I do, why I need help up stairs sometimes, or why daddy rubs my legs a lot. They don’t care. They have shown me that I don’t need anything, good or bad, working or not, disease or no disease, to be deserving of love.”