Emily Maynard's tumultuous dating history on reality TV finally led her to a happy marriage and four beautiful children, but she can't say she has zero regrets.
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"I wish that I would've kept [the franchise] totally separate [from Ricki]," Emily, 31, admitted to People.
When Emily starred on The Bachelorette in 2012, she allowed her season's winner -- and now ex-fiance -- Jef Holm to meet Ricki on-camera and spend a day swimming with her in a pool.
And a year before that, Emily competed for Brad Womack's heart on The Bachelor's fifteenth season. During Emily's hometown date in North Carolina, she introduced a painfully-shy yet sweet Ricki to Brad, who didn't know what to do when Ricki clutched onto her mother and wouldn't let go of her waist.
"At the time, I thought, 'This is it,' and I never would've brought her into it had I not thought that," Emily insisted. "So I wish that I maybe would've taken a step back, maybe sheltered her from that a little bit more."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR FINAL BACHELORS END UP WITH? (PHOTOS)
But heartbreak led to her happy ending. Emily went on to marry a man she met in church, Tyler Johnson, in June 2014 and then gave birth to three more children within two-and-a-half years of each other: Sons Gatlin Avery, 6 weeks, Gibson Kyle, 15 months, and Jennings Tyler, 2.
Although Emily has expanded her family, she still apparently has the most special connection with Ricki. The jewelry designer discovered she was pregnant with Ricki only days after her first fiance, NASCAR driver Ricky Hendrick, tragically died at age 24 in a 2004 plane crash.
"Ricki is the one that makes me laugh the most [and] she's probably the one that makes me cry the most," Emily said. "Because I had her when I was 19 and we've really grown up together."
Emily gushed of her only daughter, "So to see her becoming a grown-up... I cried like a baby at her lower-school graduation. People thought somebody had died. I was sobbing, ugly crying -- it was horrible."
Emily, however, admitted to People that her oldest son seems to be the most like her, personality-wise.
"Jennings, my 2-year-old, he wants all of his race cars to be clean... I have to get him a water bottle," Emily revealed. "He wants them clean, dried off, in a line, in the cabinet, no one can touch it. And that is, sad to say, totally me."
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOWRELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' BACHELORS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH? (PHOTOS)
The runner-up on Emily's The Bachelorette season, Arie Luyendyk Jr., will be starring on The Bachelor's 22nd season when the series returns January 1 at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
