Becoming Mila's Mama

Before I was Mila's mama, I was simply "Emily." Born and raised in Southern California, the oldest sister of four daughters, college graduate, and wanderlust traveler constantly seeking some form of an adventure. A year ago, that was just about all I could say if someone asked me to introduce myself. Today, life looks very different. But, before we get ahead of ourselves, let's start from the beginning.

I would say the essence of my story begins in college. As a naive college freshman at CSU Channel Islands, I thought I wanted to be a Psychologist so, therefore, I entered as a psychology major. While I knew I had a passion for the field, I also knew something was missing.

After completing a communication 101 introductory class in my sophomore year, I took a minor in Communication. That same year, I decided to sign up for a semester abroad for the following year. While I wasn't daring enough to go for an entire school year, my semester abroad countries of choice were South Korea, Finland, and Germany. Considering I didn't want to freeze in Finland and I wasn't too interested in learning Korean, I chose Germany. Little did I know this choice was about to change the rest of my life.

My semester abroad was in a small town in the south of Germany called Friedrichshafen. I boarded a plane in the fall of 2014 completely alone, basically clueless, and totally terrified. I was about to spend the next five months in a country I had never visited before with people I had never met. It turned out that I made friends I would keep for a lifetime and some of my greatest memories still to this day.

I returned home that following year to complete my studies as a Communication major with a dream to go back to Germany someday for my Master's degree. It was back home that I met the one person I never expected in the first class of my final year of college. He was... wait for it... German and on his semester abroad at my university. He was everything I wanted at a time when I was convinced I didn't want anyone. Yet, as the story goes, love hits you when you least expect it.

And there we were, two people from different continents, different cultures, and different lives, yet ridiculously committed to whatever would happen from that moment on. We did the long-distance thing for nearly three years before I made the move to Germany in September 2018. We had no idea that life would lead us there together. We never imagined that in the summer of 2019, exactly one week after bringing home a new puppy, we would read one word on a stick that would change our lives forever: PREGNANT.

And there it is. The not so climactic story that led me to life as Mila's Mama. It's fairly ordinary, but it's more than I could have ever dreamed of. It's a life that makes me want to bring you along for the ride through all the trials and tribulations of motherhood. I hope you find something here that's worth staying for.

Read on, share, and enjoy!