Six years on: Teen mom now welcomes second child and graduates from college

Image credit: Maddie Lambert via Facebook

A teen mom who became popular on YouTube after sharing her story of becoming pregnant at the age of 13 has now welcomed her second child with her husband and graduated college six years after the birth of her first child.

Maddie Lambert, from Texas, took to YouTube six years ago to share her story and experience of becoming a teen mom to a little girl she named Everly, after becoming pregnant shortly before she turned 14.  

In one video that details her story, Ms Lambert recalls how upon her mother finding out about her pregnancy, she started crying saying “I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me” where her mother instead told her that “I love babies” and that they will work through it.  

She later went for an ultrasound where she saw her child’s heartbeat and movements for the first time. “I heard her heart beating, at 12 weeks, she had a little heartbeat. It sounded like ocean waves, it was so cute,” she said.

“She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, she helped me become a better person, I was so bitter, I was just mad at the world at the time, and she just came into my life and saved me from so many things,” she said.

When news got out about her pregnancy, she said she had a lot of support from family and friends, but had many people urging her to have an abortion. “People would send me the address to the planned parenthood clinics, and they would call me all sorts of names,” she said.

Last year, she uploaded a video discussing the hate comments she received from people. One person had said that her story was “depressing to listen to”.

"It’s not something that people should say is depressing to listen to when the story is literally, Ok, I got pregnant at 13, everybody said it was the end of the world but it wasn’t the end of the world for me and I made this 'horrible, horrible' situation into something great,” she said. "And I’m now in my first home raising my daughter who’s about to go to preschool…I don’t know how that’s depressing.”

"I overcame all the odds and other teen mums can overcome all the odds too, because everyone is pitted against us for some reason," she added.

In a video shared by Tyla on Facebook, Ms Lambert said that it was the judgement from other people that was the hardest to overcome.

However, six years after her first child was born, Ms Lambert recently announced the birth of her second child, with her now husband Randy, a boy whom they named Ryder.

“It was really just such a beautiful experience and it was a lot less scary than last time, I wasn’t a scared little girl anymore, I was a woman, and it was amazing, it was really beautiful, and I’m so thankful that I got to experience a positive birth”, she said in a video telling viewers the story of her birth.

“I love him so much. You’re my hero mommy” her daughter Everly said when she met her baby brother.

Although Ms Lambert dropped out of school after becoming pregnant, last month she also shared that she had graduated college with an associates degree. In what would have taken her two years to complete, she graduated after a year due to taking extra classes.  

“I’m extremely proud of myself,” she said in a summary of her day, for she had welcomed her son in the midst of her college studies. She is now planning on taking Organic Chemistry this Autumn, and hopes to be transferred for an online accelerated Bachelors degree program at the University of Texas Health Science Centre.

Ms Lambert’s brave story is a powerful testimony that shows how an unplanned pregnancy does not prevent a woman from achieving her goals in life. Instead of judging women for their pregnancy and offering an abortion, we as a community should be offering love and support and give women the chance to choose life, in order to help her overcome what can be a crisis situation.