Catelynn Lowell Baltierra and Tyler Baltierra have heavy hearts after the action in this season of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter.
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The latest installment of the MTV reality series has shown the couple grappling with a lack of communication with Brandon and Teresa, who adopted their biological daughter Carly in 2009. On the season finale that aired Thursday, May 22, the couple hear an update from Dr. Drew Pinsky, who provided guidance to the parents on 16 & Pregnant.
Dr. Drew decided to reach out to Brandon and Teresa in hopes of mending the communication between both parties. In an update call with the couple, he shares that Carly is "thriving."
Catelynn shares that she feels like the other couple is "keeping this beautiful girl from me," though Dr. Drew tells her, "I don't think that's the intent."
"We can't ever say we're not grateful for them raising her," Tyler says, to which Dr. Drew acknowledges, "You can have both feelings."
Dr. Drew tells Catelynn and Tyler that he believes communication will resume between all parties, but right now "a reset" is needed "for everybody to calm down and to let the negativity settle." Tyler expresses frustration in hearing that from him and not from Brandon and Theresa themselves.
"As part of this reset, they shared something very important with me — something rather moving and remarkable from your daughter," Dr. Drew reveals.
"She sings in church, she’s quite an accomplished singer and they recorded a song of hers. I would love to listen with you because it is so moving. It does kind of feel like Carly's sending a message of, 'I'm good.'"
The couple, who wanted to listen to it privately and off-camera, were upset. "I have shared with Brandon and Teresa for multiple years, and even at the last visit, how I would love to have a video for her singing and not once has Teresa ever given them to me, but now she'll give them to you? On TV?"
"This is just the beginning. It's not like I'm going to be the conduit from now on," Dr. Drew reassures. "But I think Carly wants to share with not just you, but the world also. She's participating in this. I think she's proud of it.":max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(539x0:541x2):format(webp)/catelynn-lowell-tyler-baltierra-daughters-062623-c6c01a9f183b472b8f902232e2fd9b9c.jpg)
Catelynn Baltierra/Instagram
Catelynn says she find this "triggering" and doesn't want to listen to it unless it's in private. The next scene shows an explainer that Catelynn reached out for the link privately and her request was denied by Brandon and Teresa.
Later in the episode, the couple discuss what happened in an emotional conversation, with Tyler saying, "The intention feels manipulative, I'm sorry."
As the conversation continues, he admits, "I regret placing my kid for adoption. We didn't know that we were going to get financially stable, we didn't know that we would get resources to work on our mental health and get better before we brought more kids in the world.":max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(630x437:632x439):format(webp)/Catelynn-Tyler-Baltierra-Teen-Mom-Season-Finale-052325-01-f75c2b7a1c854658a2564da240e81aa8.jpg)
MTV
"Some days I have those thoughts too," Catelynn admits. Tyler breaks down into tears and apologizes to her for how the circumstances have turned out. She reminds him this happened to both of them because they were young and didn't know any better.
In their final confessional for the season, Tyler says, "If I had to say anything to Carly ... I'm so proud of you and I'm sorry. I love you and I miss you."
Catelynn adds, "We would love to hear Carly's song and I hope we get the chance someday, it would mean the world to listen to that."
In an Instagram post shared ahead of the episode addressing their issues with the scenario, the couple shared a letter they sent to Brandon and Teresa in response to the song and explained their reaction on the show, as its depicted, in their caption.
"We never chose to not listen to the song! We were actually super excited, very touched, & couldn’t wait to hear it! But this was all thrown onto us out of nowhere with MTV’s set up. We never pursued Dr. Drew’s help on our own, this was all MTV’s idea since their producers were the only ones that our biological daughter’s parents were willing to speak with about all of this," Tyler's message begins.
The message explains that while they were initially comfortable with filming, they wanted to be filmed without talking about the adoption, which wasn't fitting for the situation. Tyler claimed that production came to the "compromise" of the song instead.
"The first time Cate ever heard her sing prior to this, became a very emotionally intense day. So recognizing this & wanting to prepare ourselves, all we asked was to first give us a moment to listen in private. That way we could collect/process ourselves a bit & then we could listen & play it on camera afterwards, like they wanted," Tyler explains.
"So when we asked for the gift that their daughter wanted us to have, they said the only way to hear the gift, is if we listened to it on camera & that we weren’t actually allowed to have it personally. We were so confused & hurt about why they would say they have this beautiful gift to give us, only to never plan on really giving it to us in the first place (even though that’s what their daughter wanted)."
Tyler says it was "truly heartbreaking" for the two "to have something so special just dangled in front of us, to then have it ripped away like that."
"Navigating an open adoption as a birthparent is so difficult, especially with such a constant imbalanced power dynamic. Birthparents are always at the mercy of the adopters (which is understandable, since we’re the ones who relinquished our baby to them) but that still doesn’t make it any less hard or painful," he shared.
"As I’ve stated before, we won’t be mentioning our biological daughter or her parents anymore & that’s why we’re actually relieved that this episode is airing, so that way we can all just finally move forward."
