The moment I turned 16 I started working at In-N-Out Burger. It was my first job and I absolutely loved that company. I stayed there for 10 years and went into management, all while getting my BA at Cal Poly Pomona and working part time at a law office. My plan was to go to law school at USC. After I graduated, I wasn't quite sure if law school was really what I wanted. I asked myself, "do I really want to have my head in a book for the rest of my life?". So I transitioned to a job with a private medical company doing vascular screenings for stroke prevention. It was a job that I excelled in, but it was very labor-intensive. Six days out of the week, I took my work home with me. The company also had a traveling team that I desperately wanted to join, but my manager didn't approve me leaving her and our team. Mainly because I made the team thousands in bonuses every year. Many people saw how amazing I was at that job, they urged me to go into nursing school but I knew my heart wasn't in it. Just because I was good at something doesn't mean I was meant for it.

Right around this time, I heard one of my cousins just got hired as a flight attendant for Delta. She said I would be perfect as a flight attendant and I should apply. I applied and ended up getting hired with Virgin America. This is where I believe my life really begun! As soon as I started, I knew I was a lifer! I told myself, "I don't ever want to do anything else." It was everything I've always wanted, but didn't know existed. That's why to this day if someone says to me, "I've always wanted to be a flight attendant." I tell them, it's never too late. I had retirees, ex nurses, ex cops and so many other people in my training class that had different backgrounds.

Six months into being a flight attendant, I had my first trip with the man I now call husband. We both started with the company as flight attendants around the same time. We both weren't looking for anything serious at the time but I guess that's when they say you meet your person. Our trip was to New York, and since we both never been into the city, we decided to go to central park, walk around, and get lunch. Which essentially turned into our first date. Since then we have traveled to so many different countries together. Although traveling with him was amazing, especially the one in Greece where we proposed, I did enjoy my solo and girl trips. We moved out of state twice, got married in Jalisco, and transitioned from dual income to single income to dual again to put my husband through flight school. For many years, we told eachother we didn't want kids, because we loved our lifestyle of last minute trips here and there. I always said from a young age, I didn't want to be a mother, so I was fine with our decision.

Around 4 years ago, I started having hormonal changes and thought I might be going through perimenopause. This shifted my mindset, and I grew upset thinking the choice of having kids was being taken away. Around the same time, my husband started to make jokes about having kids a little too often. So we decided we should try. For more than a year we tried and nothing happened. I told him, if it can't happen naturally it wasn't meant to be. The stress of trying to get pregnant was too much and we said no more trying. Then, a year later, I found out I was pregnant with Mateo.

They say life happens when you're making other plans, and my life is proof of that. It happened at the perfect timing in our lives.

I might get some hate for this, but, I was the one rolling their eyes at the mama's that told me, "there's nothing like the love you have with your child," or "you don't know what you're missing." Don't worry, the universe slapped me in the face when I had Mateo, and now I'm the hypocrite! I finally get what everyone was trying to tell me. Mateo is the love of my life, and I'm so grateful I get to be his mother. It was very difficult navigating being a first time mother who never thought she would be, and surrounded herself with non mother friends. That's why I'm so grateful to programs like New Mom's School and FIT4MOM.

It really does take a village and I don't know where I would be, especially mentally, if I didn't have these new mama friends in my life. Thanks ladies!