First post in my new blog :)

Hi! I'm Sunde, 23, and a happy SAHM to my beautiful 8 month old son, Max. I'm married to my wonderful hubby, Sean. I'm pretty excited to finally start my blog (even though I originally thought to start one when Max was born, heh) so here we go. Going to start out with a post about what got us to where we are now:

Where to start...Both my husband and I are from a small town near Palm Springs, CA. My parents are still married and love each other, and I have 2 brothers, Cameron, 24, and Garrett, 20. I'm the middle child and only girl. I met my husband, Sean, 24, in high school my freshman year (his junior year) through my older brother. We clicked, but because we were both so shy it took us a long time for us to admit our feelings and start dating. It finally happened on Dec. 28th, 2001. In a very shy, but cute way he asked me to be his girlfriend. Then started our very strong love story. After being together for 5 months, Sean and his dad got into a pretty bad fight and Sean ended up moving back to live with his mom in Reno, NV...which was 1000 miles away. I was only 15 at the time. It was a huge shock to my system. I cried so much that first day he was gone. I sank into a depression (remember, I was only 15. To me, this was the end of the world). Back then there wasn't any free long distance calling yet so our time on the phone was limited. It was hard. We saw each other once every 1.5-2 months. We lived like that for 16 months.

The day Sean turned 18 he moved out and moved back...safe to say it was one of the happiest days of my life. He rented a room in his aunt's house for 2 years and worked with his dad at his Grandpa's glass block company (by this point both Sean and I were on much better terms with his dad and step mom). I was still at home finishing up high school. When I graduated in 2005, Sean was thinking about joining the Navy. He couldn't stand working for his Grandpa's company (nothing personal, just hated it) and at 20 years old was going through a mid-life crisis, feeling he wanted to do something else, wanted to be able to provide for himself and I. When we look back at it now, we laugh. But hey, it got us to where we are today and we'reso happy it did. On our 4 year anniversary on Dec. 28th, 2005, He took me to the park where we had all our 'firsts' late at night. It was so beautiful with all the house's surrounding it. They still had their Christmas lights up. That's where he asked me to marry him :) it was so, so, so romantic. I was only 18 and he 20. All of our family was supportive and happy. Both his and my parents knew beforehand, too.

So, he joined the Navy in January '06. After he graduated bootcamp in March, we found out that we could have a wedding in a little over 2 months, June 24th, 2006. So my mom and I planned our heart out and we got a full, beautiful wedding planned at a beautiful venue. It was a blast and to this day holds the title of "best party" to all our friends, lol. It was a crazy night. He did all his training and schooling and finally got to his first duty station which conveniently ended up being in San Diego, which is only 2.5 hours from our hometown. During all this, I was at home with my parents still. But once he got his duty station, I was able to move out to San Diego to be with him. So in August of '06, Sean and I got our first place together. A 1 bedroom apartment. It was nice and gave us what we needed at the time, but after 6 months we were kinda fed up with how small it was. So we decided to get on the waiting list for military housing. We chose to live at Murphy Canyon housing because it was such a great location and the housing was really nice (as far as military housing goes, anyway) plus they had a backyard for our dogs. Well, we weren't the only ones who wanted it either since the waiting list was 6 months long. But it worked out perfectly anyway since our lease wasn't up for another 6 months.

Anywho, we moved here in August of '07 and have been here since. In March of '08 Sean deployed for the first time. That was hard...I hated living at home alone. I had a job, otherwise I would have gone back home a lot. But I got through it and in September '08 he came back home. We were so happy! We also started our TTC journey which ended up being a short one since we got pregnant the very first try right after he got home, lol. Heck, we weren't even officially trying yet. But we conceived Max! We were soooo happy, and a little nervous. We both didn't expect it to happen so fast AT ALL. But it did, and thank God it did because since Sean just came home from deployment he was able to be home for my entire pregnancy and be here for the birth, plus has been home for Max's whole 8.5 months of living so far. Trust me, that is NOT very common in the military world. I've known many who's husbands were gone during their pregnancy, and some even missing the birth. And some who have left right after their baby was born. That's just how it is usually in the military. So I am so very thankful that we had Max when we did.

He was born June 11th, 2009. I was 38.5 weeks along when I noticed Max hadn't moved in a few hours. We were concerned so we went into Labor and Delivery to get him checked out and he turned out to be just fine, just super comfy and sleeping. But then during a small contraction I had, his heart rate dropped dangerously low. It went back up afterword, but this concerned my Midwife so she decided to induce me that night. It was ok since he was full term and they could feel he was a good size so they weren't worried at all about inducing me early. I was worried because they said if the contractions continue to make his heart rate drop, they were going to have to perform a C section to get him out. I did NOT want a C section. I wanted to bring him into this world the way we're meant to. I want to be the one who worked so hard to get him out. I didn't want a doctor to do it and believe it or not, I wanted to feel it. I did get an epidural, but it didn't help much for the actual pushing and birth part. This is getting a little TMI so I'm sorry in advance! But after working so hard and enduring so much pain to get my baby boy out (pushed SO HARD for over an hour) it really made me appreciate the end result so much. So I'm actually considering going all natural next time. And unless medically necessary, I wont be induced. I want to go into labor totally naturally.

Anyway, obviously we didn't need a C section. His heart rate never dropped again so I had a normal 19 hour labor lol. My Midwife said I was truly one of the hardest pushers she ever came across. Max was still high when I felt the pressure to push so she thought for sure it would have taken over 2 hours but I got him out in just over 1. She was very impressed. But I don't fuck around lol. So at 6:44pm on June 11th, 2009 Max was born <3 7lbs 10oz and 20 and a quarter inch's. Healthy as can be. We had to stay in the Hospital for 5 days because they didn't have the result for my Group B strep test (they lost it, ugh) so he had to be monitored for a few days before they could release him, just in case he showed any signs of fever. Thankfully he didn't so we were able to go home finally. Both our families weren't able to stay out and help so it was just Sean and I form the beginning so I was never able to catch up on any sleep before we started the feedings every 2 hours. So it was a hard adjustment from being really exhausted to extremely exhausted. So the first few weeks were tough, but we got through them and by 2 months Max was starting to sleep for longer amounts of time and by 3 months he was sleeping through the night. That's when things became easier and more normal. And that's when the real fun started because his personality really started to grow :)

So That's pretty much where we are now. Max has just been growing and shining more and more every day. He is the light of our lives and we love having him here SO much. He's my little monkey <3 We've been getting asked a lot lately when we'd have our next one. And we both agree that we're having so much fun with just having Max right now that we don't feel like already having to focus on another one yet. Max is my baby still and I think once he isn't a baby anymore is when we will want another little one. So we're thinking maybe in a year we will start TTC a little brother or sister. Naturally we both would like a girl next, but I love having a baby boy so much so if we end up having another boy I will definitely be happy about that. I get this feeling I am meant to have 2 boys though, whether it's the next one or the 3rd one (we're pretty sure we want 3). So we will see!

And in a couple months Sean will start going out to sea on work ups. He will be gone for a lot of the summer :( But he wont be gone for more than a month at a time. A month here and there will suck, but at least he wont be deploying on October. His squadron is going out on deployment in October and he starts shore duty in september...perfect timing! lol.

Well, this is WAY long enough for now. Just wanted to give a background post of what led us to here. My posts wont always be this long, promise lol.