There’s nothing holding her back! Catelynn Lowell was open on Teen Mom OG about battling postpartum depression after having daughter Nova in 2015. While she admitted the thought of struggling with this severe form of clinical depression again with another pregnancy makes her nervous, Lowell, 26, wasn’t going to let anything stop her.
“I’m not gonna let that hold me back from the one of the most beautiful things in life, which is children,” Lowell tells Us Weekly exclusively. “I just have to continue therapy and work through it.”
The new season of Teen Mom OG began filming right after she returned from treatment in February, and the coping has continued each day. Us Weekly exclusively broke the news on September 13 that Lowell and husband Tyler Baltierra are expecting their “rainbow baby,” which came as a complete surprise to the middle-school sweethearts.
The couple, who married in 2015, share 3-year-old daughter Novalee. In 2009, they had their first daughter, Carly, and placed her for adoption. The adoption journey was documented on 16 & Pregnant. During last season of Teen Mom OG, Lowell revealed she suffered a miscarriage, and following the trauma, she entered treatment after sharing she had been battling suicidal thoughts. However, this time around, she’s in a different mindset and in a way, is thankful for the struggles of her past.
“The last time I got pregnant I had really bad anxiety. With this pregnancy it’s completely different. I’m not anxious. I’m not depressed. I’m actually in a really good mental state with this one,” Lowell tells Us. “The treatment I had really helped with that. I feel like everything happens for a reason. God puts certain things in your life for a reason and takes certain things away for a reason.”
She continued: “As devastating as the miscarriage was, I really feel like I’ve worked with my counselor. I really believe in my heart that I was meant to have that miscarriage because I spiraled so hard that it forced me to go to a place where I really had to dig into my childhood traumas and things like that that I have not really dug in before. I really think that it was a push to really work harder on things that I really wasn’t working on even though it was a sad and emotional thing. I really think that that baby was meant to leave so that way I was meant to really dig deeper on my wounds from my childhood.”
Baltierra, 26, has also “been going to therapy for a really long time,” says Lowell, and is continuing to work on himself both mentally and emotionally. He’s now in a good place, which will be documented in the upcoming season 8 of Teen Mom OG, which picks up with her return home after seeking treatment for depression. While it took time for her to deal with her emotional struggles, the Conquering Chaos author has learned to cope.
“It took me a while to really find like a good therapist that I wanted,” she explains. “I kind of slacked on that for a while, but I’ve got a really good therapist who I really like now, so I’m just sticking to seeing a psychologist once a month and also I’m seeing my counselor once a week. She’s a trauma therapist, so I know that a lot of my anxiety comes from, like, my trauma from my childhood, so it’s really taking it all out.”
Lowell is also extremely close with her daughter Nova, and ever since she’s been back from treatment, Nova has been “attached to my hip,” she says. The reality star also realizes that eventually she will have to have a conversation with her daughter about where she was during that time, something that will come when the little girl is “older.”
“I’m just going to be honest with her, and honestly with children, I think is the best way to go about things. Also if she ever struggles with anxiety or anything like that, I’ll be, like, her best teacher,” Lowell says. “I think it’ll show her that Mom had a really rough time, but she powered through and worked on herself and had to be a little bit selfish in that moment. So I think she’ll understand.”
Teen Mom OG premieres on MTV Monday, October 1, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Sarah Hearon
