We met at school and grew up having classes together from middle school to high school. However. we didn't become friends until the 7th grade. By the end of the 8th grade, we were talking all the time and became best friends. There was actually a time during high school where we stopped being friends for almost a year. We went our 10th grade year without talking to each other. That summer we slowly started to make our way back to one another. This was the year COVID hit. We started to talk more and more and finally told each other how we felt... (finally, it only took us 4 years to get here). By August of 2020, we began dating and have pretty much been together every day since.
Our life began pretty quickly at a young age given that Sheila became pregnant our senior year of high school. Luckily, our parents took it well and supported us all the way through. We finished school and had a beautiful baby boy 1 week before graduation!
After graduation we were eager to get a place of our own for the new little family we created. Our parent instincts kicked in and we started working towards our goal. Lane started working two jobs and Sheila stayed home to take care of Santi. It was a HUGE adjustment as we were still babies ourselves, but we managed. We moved out at 18 years old and have since been working towards our goal of buying a house!
We got engaged on Sheila’s 19th birthday around close friends and family. (Sheila’s perspective)- I wanted my 19th birthday to be one I could look back on since I decided not to celebrate my 18th birthday (I had just had a baby, so I didn’t care for a big celebration). I invited my older sister and her friends to come down so we could all have a good time. My mom booked a DJ and made sure everything was decorated the way I wanted. I remember dancing and trying to have a good time with one of my cousins (the MOH) and looking back to see that my sister and her friends were nowhere to be seen so that’s when I went to look for them. As I got closer the front (which is where the proposal was set up) I was stopped and told to go back, and my cousin was (not so discreetly) told to distract me. She was also clueless. Next thing I know, my mom came and got me, and I realized that the guests were all missing from the back of the house. She started to walk me toward the front of the house and that’s when I knew. I was met by each one of the guests aligned to create a walkway for me to walk through. They each had a rose to hand to me as I walked down the path. My mom let me go and I walked down as I collected each rose trying to hold back my tears. Once I got to the end, that is when I saw Lane down on one knee. I could see he was nervous. (He was so nervous, he put the ring on the wrong finger.) Anyways, of course I said yes!
We both wanted to have kids close in age (between 2-3 years old). As mentioned before, we had our first baby when we were 17/18. Although it was unplanned, it was the biggest blessing and the best thing to happen to us. Our focus went straight to him, and we couldn’t imagine sharing the attention just yet. We wanted to cherish him being a baby for as long as possible. When we got engaged, our son was about a year and a half years old and we were now 19/20. Around this time, we moved out of our first apartment and into our first home. We still weren’t sure we were ready for another kid. However, we knew he would be turning 2 years old pretty soon. The thought of him not being the only baby anymore made us sad, but the thought of him having a sibling to share life and experiences with brought us joy. As we talked about it more seriously, we decided to try for a baby in March of 2024 and by April 2024 we were pregnant with our second!
We just recently had our precious baby girl in January and have now upgraded from a family of 3 to a family of 4. We have two beautiful kids named Santiago and Camila who will be a part of our wedding as our ring bearer and flower girl.