A major milestone! Catelynn Lowell paid tribute to her eldest daughter, Carly, on the teenager’s 14th birthday.
“14 years ago this amazing little girl was born! Gosh if she only knew how many people she has touched and changed ❤️,” the Teen Mom OG star, 31, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, May 18. “Happy Birthday Carly 🎂🎈 we love you so much!!!”
Lowell was 17 years old in 2008 when she gave birth to her and now-husband Tyler Baltierra’s eldest child, whom they placed for adoption. MTV cameras were there to capture every emotional moment of the couple’s journey on their episode of 16 and Pregnant, which aired in 2009.
When the pair began starring on Teen Mom (later renamed Teen Mom OG) that same year, viewers followed the Michigan natives as they coped with Carly’s adoption and went on to welcome three more daughters: Novalee, 8, Vaeda, 4, and Rya Rose, who turns 2 in August.
While the reality stars originally had a copacetic relationship with Carly’s adoptive parents, Brandon and Teresa Davis, tensions grew once the North Carolina residents no longer wanted Lowell and Baltierra, 31, to share new photos of their daughter via social media or have her featured on the show.
Despite the drama, the 16 and Pregnant alums have showed up for Carly throughout her life — and Brandon and Teresa have done the same. When Lowell and Baltierra tied the knot in 2015, the Davises were there to celebrate, and Carly got to dance with her biological dad.
As Lowell and Baltierra’s children have gotten older, they’ve also grown more curious — and vocal — about their eldest sister, whom they celebrate every year on her birthday.
“[Nova’s] like, ‘I really miss Carly.’ She’s like, ‘I don’t — why did you have to separate us?’” Lowell told her husband in a November 2022 episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, recalling how Nova came home from school just “sobbing” about Carly.
“It just never occurred to me, when I was making the decision [to place Carly for adoption] at 16, how it would impact my future children, you know?” Baltierra shared.
Nova, for her part, told her parents: “It feels like that’s my sister and I can’t see her that much.”
For Carly’s 13th birthday last year, Baltierra wrote an emotional poem for his now-teenage daughter.
“I never wanted to let you go / I hope you understand / I wanted to hold you in my arms forever / Like your fingers around my pinky / In the palm of your little hand,” he wrote. “I reminisce of your beautiful face / Swaddled so tight in your baby blanket / Your spirit so innocent…& guess what? / I still have that baby blanket… / It’s folded in the chest by my bed / & sometimes I unravel it Just to put it around my neck / & pretend it’s you I’m holding instead.”
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Keep scrolling to see Lowell’s 14th birthday tribute to Carly:
