I've Been Sober For 5 Years & Am Ready To Be A Mom! | KARAMO

My daughter Lizzy really needs to get her act together. She was raised better than this. I'm always cleaning up her mess. Lizzy had her first child taken from her, now I've got custody of her newborn baby. She chooses her time to partying, drinking, and worrying about other men. She's never single, she jumps from one man to another. She is an unfit mother and has her priorities all mixed up. She doesn't even know who the baby's father is. And that's why we're here today to finally get the truth.

Well, before we meet Theresa, let's first talk to her daughter Lizzie. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

I gotta ask you, how do you feel about what your mother just said about you?

I kinda expected it.

You expected it?

Yeah.

Okay, does she speak about you that often? Is what she's saying the truth?

Yeah.

Okay, so—

As far as being unsure who the father of Echo is, is true.

Okay then.

The partying And jumping man to man at the time, it was true. Now I don't do it anymore. Do I go out? Yes. Am I constantly out and about? No.

How often do you go out?

Ever since I had my daughter, probably about once in a blue moon.

Okay, okay, got it. So what is your relationship like with your mother?

It's a little rocky.

Okay, why is it rocky?

We have our moments where we can agree. Like when it comes to my daughter, we agree on most of everything. But something outside or like away from my daughter, something that I wanna do, she's like, "I don't know, I think it might be a bad idea for you to do it," or she won't let me or help me do it.

Got it. How was it growing up?

Pretty good.

Good? Good childhood?

It was—

You looked off to the side. What was that about?

My mom wasn't fully in my life. I don't know the full backstory on that. And like I told everybody, I don't wanna know. I know that she was a truck driver. That was her way of making a living for me and my brother. My grandparents had us from, I think I was about 2, maybe 3 years old.

Got it.

When my grandparents took custody of me.

Did you ever live with your mother?

At one point I did.

Like when you were what, in your teens?

Yeah, younger age, younger than teens.

Okay, so how much do you see your child now?

I see her almost every day whenever we video chat.

Oh, she's adorable. So you see her through video chat?

Yeah, and then when my mom's out in Johnson City, she'll stop by and see, or see if I'm home. If I'm not home, she'll find out where I'm at.

Okay, so how old is the child now?

She will be 2 months old.

Wow, so you've only seen your baby how many times in person? 'Cause you just said through video chat.

In person, I stayed with my mom after I had her back in December. I stayed with her until our court date, which I think was like the 11th, I think it was, or 12th, something like that.

So you've only seen your daughter for a couple weeks of her life?

Yeah.

Okay, and why don't you have custody of the baby?

I had CPS step in with my oldest, and I got with the wrong people, and they took my daughter.

Was it substance abuse issues that you were getting involved in?

Not when I was pregnant with my oldest.

But before?

Just after I had my oldest is when I got until the drug abuse and all.

Okay, what were you on?

I was on meth.

Meth, okay. So is that why your mother's saying she feels like you're unfit?

She thinks I'm gonna relapse.

Okay then, got it. And how long have you been sober?

Been 5 years clean, almost 6 years clean off of meth, and I've got 8 months under my belt of Suboxone.

Okay.

Well, she went through hell 5 years ago, 7 years ago technically. When she had her oldest daughter.

Yeah.

And then losing her to the state. And then going through her drug addict stage in life.

Mm-hmm.

It broke my heart to see her go from a beautiful blonde thriving young lady to a skeleton walking around I didn't even recognize that kept bruises on her from her ex. Yeah. Beating on her, you know.

He had guns on me.

It's bad.

Yeah. Here, let me give you this. I can only imagine what that was like for you to see. Here you go. Okay, so what is your relationship like now?

Pretty good. I mean, we do butt heads. We don't get into fist fights no more, but—

Oh yeah. Y'all have gone to a fist fight before?

Yes, we have.

Wow.

Yes.

Oh my gosh. I love how y'all both smile with that.

Y'all like, "Yeah, yes we have." Well, I've always raised my kids the way my parents raised me. If you got an argument, talk it out. If not, fight it out, walk away, shake hands, let it be.

But that was the problem where you messed up doing that though.

Yeah, there's a couple times he took me out.

Let me tell you what I did not expect from this. All right, how grandma over here talking. I did not for you expect for you to tell me y'all have been fist fighting and then like there has been like, so when did that start?

Oh God, since she was little. I've always tried to keep her to learn self-defense. And we would fight back and forth, you know, just—

Got it, yeah.

You know, 'cause I know my kid's gonna get picked on.

Yeah.

You know, she did through school. She was bullied a lot. So—

Did you tell my producers that she broke your leg at one point?

Uh-huh.

Wow.

Yes. I didn't mean to at all, though.

She got mad because I told her she was not going out to the bar that night. She was only 16, 17 years old. She had a fake ID.

Yeah.

And she goes, I'm gonna go do what the hell I want. And I said, no, you won't in my house. So she took off to go tell my mom and dad downstairs. I grabbed her cell phone, shut it off, I hid it. She come back up, they wouldn't know where her phone was, and I said, "It's gone. You ain't getting it unless you're staying home. You're not going to a bar." She punched me, come up to punch me. I pushed her back on the bed, just a reaction.

Oh my gosh.

She had cowboy boots on that my dad got.

Still had cowboy boots on, and when I did that, I forgot I had them on, not thinking.

I brought my leg up and I popped her right there in that femur, and she— a small fracture of my femur. And oh my gosh, I just— I snapped. I had her choke slam, slammed her down. My dad came in. I walked away.

Was she always this reactive her entire life?

Not her entire life, no. Uh, when she hit 13, all hell broke loose.

Yeah, that's when my fighting started.

What was going on at 13 in your life?

Uh, just everybody coming at me sideways and telling me I would never amount to nothing in life.

Is Lizzie demanding of you?

Sometimes she can be. She'll call and need something, like, I need it now. Like last week, she needed a ride from the courthouse with visitations.

Yeah, because I got stuck out there and I called her. I was like, hey, can you come get me?

And it was about 9:30 in the morning. I had a baby to get, which getting up, getting changed, feeding. I have an elderly mother that I take care of. And I'm trying to do medicine. Diapers, bottles, getting them something to eat, plus get laundry from the baby getting sick the night before and having a blowout in the diaper and trying to get cleaned up. And here she is wanting to come up there now, which is a 45-minute drive at the most.

So I'm gonna ask you a question. What do you need from Lizzy?

I'd like to see her take her responsibilities and put them, her priorities, and put them in order. I know she loves her daughter to death. That's her pride. And I know this. But be more— she'll call and not ask about the baby sometimes and ask me about other things going on. She gets sidetracked easy. Think more of the baby. I don't mind her calling, but not 11 o'clock, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning or at night. After 9 o'clock, don't call me unless it's absolutely an emergency.

Yeah. Do you like this guy Jason who could be the father of the child?

We butt heads. We do. And I'm sure he'll say the same thing. There's been a few little nicknames between us, but we tolerate each other.

Got it, okay. My producers say his friends burned your car.

They believe that he had something to do with it, but they could not physically prove it.

I know for a fact that Jason was at work.

He was, yes.

He called me, he even video chatted me, and at this time he worked for a glass company. I'm like, hey, are you at work? I was like, "Yeah, I don't get off until about 7 o'clock in the morning." I didn't think nothing about it.

How long ago was this?

Gosh, almost 2 years ago.

2 years ago, okay then. If he is the father, do you feel like it will take pressure off of you?

Actually, I would love him to be the father. I would. And the baby's already attached to him.

Yeah. We have what we call a love-hate relationship. I love him to death, could never be with him though. But I dare someone to touch him, hurt him, or even think that they're gonna get rid of me. And it's just 'cause I'll be like, "No, ma'am.

No." Got it, got it, got it. I'm gonna ask you this just 'cause I used to work in this field. When Child Protective Services got involved and the court, you went to court, did they do mandate anger management classes?

Yeah.

Okay.

And she has continued. I got anger management classes I'm doing, parenting classes I'm doing. And then they did a mental evaluation with me and it showed to them and everybody else, as I was saying, I'm not mentally able to handle a child right now. I love my kids to death, but I will not wake up to their crying in the middle of the night.

This is good. I'm glad because the thing is that I understand that the calmness and the sweet smiles, but for me, it's a bigger concern. What I try to make sure is like, not only we're here to figure out the paternity and figure out the DNA truth here, it's always also about the relationship between you both. You know, like mother-daughter and the healthiness of this relationship will dictate the healthiness of this relationship. That baby's life. Yes, it was. And so my question in asking that is to make sure, like, are you getting some help? Are you getting what you need? Have they been, are you getting support? Because you have a lot on your shoulders.

I do, yes. I get support. And like I tell my daughter, and we got this thing, even though we fight and argue, we never end the day without saying, love you, later.

Got it. So I think there's one other person that we have to get involved in this, and that's Jason. Who could be the potential father of your child. So everyone, let's welcome Jason to the show. Hey Jason.

Hello.

Thank you for being here. Thank you. Take a seat for me. So how are you feeling today?

Feeling good, anxious, found out.

This would be your first child, correct?

Yes.

Yeah, and are you excited?

I am. I'm very excited. Like was mentioned before, yeah, I have grown attached to her.

Yeah, Theresa said that the baby's really attached to you. Yeah.

I think attachment's not the word for it though. You two will butt heads, I can see it.

I'm sure we will.

So you wanna be the father of this child?

Yes, I do.

Yeah, tell me why and how badly do you want to be?

Well, for one, it'd be my first child and I've always said I wanted a child and everything and I'm not getting any younger. Yeah. You know, from, I was there for her at the hospital when I could be, and from the moment I laid eyes on her, you know. Yeah.

So tell me about your relationship with Lizzy.

We've had our ups and downs. It's been a rocky relationship.

Yeah. I love how all of them talk about their relationships with a smile on their face. I'm gonna start doing that. I'm gonna be like, yeah, me and my boss just got into a fight.

Yeah.

One of our biggest downfalls was, You know, I was wanting to kind of settle down more, you know, not go out so much.

Got it.

Basically, you know.

'Cause you're in your 40s.

Yes.

Yeah, so for you, you're like at a point in your life where family, settling down, more of a quiet life is more of a priority for you. Got it. And how's your relationship with her mother? 'Cause I heard y'all clash a little bit. It's been a rocky one as well.

Yes.

And you know, when it comes to that, A lot of it's been false communication between you and other people.

Yes.

And I've always told you, if there's a problem, come to me. Don't go by hearsay from other people.

Right.

When it comes to the car incident, I told you I had nothing to do with that. Right. I didn't have no knowledge of that.

And there was proof that he was at work, but I did tell him this is what the detective was telling me.

So do you think your friend set her car on fire?

Honestly, no, because this one right here was making her fair share of the enemies.

Yeah.

And she was also doing her fair share, you know.

I was influenced by other people.

So from the perspective, it sounds like Jason, you wanna be in this child's life, you love this child, you're trying. Yes, you might have a strained relationship with both of these ladies, but to you, this child is a priority. Yes. That's it. Yeah. Okay then, well Jason, you came here to find out if you are Echo's father by taking a DNA test. I think it's time to unlock the truth. Are you ready to find out? I'm ready.

I'm excited to find out.

I mean, in this envelope is the DNA truth that you all have been waiting for. This is a big moment for all three of you because it gives you answers, gives you clarity, gives you answers as well. Jason, This is not my truth to open, and since you're the one who really wants this information, I'm gonna give it to you.

Okay, thanks.

If you can open it and read it out loud. Okay.

Just rip it open.

Echo is not your biological daughter.

Okay, that is—

You can't say your ex.

Well, hold on. That's not gonna be a part of it. Hold on. How are you feeling, Jason?

It does bother me, but at the same time, I will still be in the child's life and be there.

First of all, Jason, I'm very sorry because even though you've been there, I could tell that there would've been a great opportunity for this child to have you as a father. Right. I'm glad that Grandma, you're in the photo, in the picture, and you are doing all you can. I'm glad that there's growth here on your part, 'cause there are two mothers here who need a healthy relationship with their daughters. Yes. And I'm glad you're taking the steps for that to happen because you're all gonna be under one roof and I wanna make sure things are healthy. But at the same time, this child, so that we don't continue the problems of anger and resentment and feelings of uncertainty and abandonment, which caused you to start to feel like no one was there for you, even though your mother was. We have to get more answers. And so I would love to talk to you backstage more about how you can have that conversation to make sure that your child knows who their father is, but also you're protecting your child, your mother. But I'm glad that at least we're working on the relationship between these, you two. And then figuring yourself out so you can work on the relationship with your daughter. And we could talk more about which one of your exes could be the father or how this could work out. Again, Jason, I'm sorry and I'm here to support you more, okay? Okay, thank you. You're welcome.