Meet Our Founder

Meet Our Founder

Hello, my name is Courtney Fernandez, I am so happy that you chose to join our journey with BadAssMoms. 

I was watching my kids play on the beach over the weekend and I thought to myself “Court, It’s time to share your story”, and my thoughts were correct, it’s time to share with you about ME and why I am so passionate about the movement we are starting here at BadAssMoms. 

So here are the raw details of ME…..

When I was 29 I delivered my first daughter Rylan Taylor with my first husband. The day she was born was by far the best day of my life. I knew I was meant to be a mom. Things shifted soon after she was born, her father and I divorced and it became just the two of us. I always dreamed of having more children but knew I would be ok if it was just us two. At that moment I knew I had to be strong.

Soon after my divorce was final, I ran into a very dear friend of mine who we lost contact for reasons that aren't important many years prior to our reconnection, what was important was we were reunited and picked right back up where we left off and now he is my husband of almost ten years. 

ET and I were married in January 2011, with my daughter by our side. After we got married we knew it was time to try for another baby. My husband at this time was 54, and had never had any children but was wanting to try. 

After learning from my Dr that it would be impossible to do it again on my own because of medical issues, we decided to try IVF. With the help of our amazing Dr’s, we were pregnant with not one baby, but with twins. 

Our twin boys came into the world on July 31st, 6 weeks early and we had the biggest scare of our life. Hudson was born and quickly rushed out of the delivery room with respiratory failure and all I could see was the tears running down my husband's face as he is holding my hand trying to keep me calm and letting me know it was ok. We spent 11 days in the NICU with our twins and I have to say it was a lot of tears and times I had to figure out what the next steps were going to be. Was Hudson going to be ok, was I going to have to leave the NICU with just one baby, how was my daughter doing at home without me for all those days? No one could get me out of the room with the boys for 11 days. 

We finally came home with two healthy baby boys thanks to the wonderful nurses and Dr’s at the hospital, only to be met with our next adversity. 

While we were in the NICU my husband was having the worst cough and went to see his Dr and had a chest x-ray. Cancer was the result of that cough! Not only was it Cancer in his lungs, but it was also in his brain and lymph nodes. Diagnosis… Stage Four Metastatic Melanoma. 

I kept thinking in my head “ NOWAY”, not my husband and not now..we just brought home our brand new babies, this time is supposed to be so blissful. 

After many days of crying, I went to see my Dr.. when he saw me and heard what we were going through he quickly got out his script pad and wrote out meds to help me get through this. When I got home with my pocket of prescriptions, I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself “nothing is going to help with how I am feeling right now”. Pills are only going to numb my pain and make it difficult to take care of my children. So I had two options .. Option #1 was to take the meds and try to mask my pain and lay in bed all day with the help of my family to take care of my children, or Option #2 rip up the scripts, hold my head up high and honor my family with my true self during my husband's final days. I chose option #2. I put on my big girl panties and we found the best treatment, stayed positive, and didn’t let the prognosis define us and our fight for his life. Now 7 years later with the help of the team at Moffitt Cancer Center and clinical trials .. My husband is with us and cancer-free. 

Adversity is part of our everyday life..it’s how we deal with it that defines who we really are. We were blessed with the most incredible outcomes. I am saddened by the ones that don’t have the same outcomes or are faced with the same. 

With this, all being said .. Lets all of us BadAssMoms band together and take this journey of life together as warriors. WE can do this!! I promise you..there were so many moments when I just didn't think I could, but I did and you can too. 

So, for OUR new journey together lets chat, journal, scream, cry, and laugh together. WE GOT THIS!!!! 

Please share with me your story! We don’t all have the same but we can help someone else that is faced with what we already went through and help them get to the other side. 

Love you ALL and Thank you for your support in joining me on this journey of being BadAssMoms