Our next guest is a marine who recently returned home
from deployment.
And we saw a video of him meeting
his baby for the first time.
He wanted to meet him.
Take a look at this.
Yo!
Oh, there he is.
[SQUEALING]
Oh my god.
Congratulations.
I thought [INAUDIBLE].
Hi, Brandon.
Hi, Francis.
Hi.
Welcome.
This is so exciting to meet you because that
was the sweetest video.
We saw that and that was just amazing.
Were you shocked by how many views that got?
Oh my gosh, yes.
Honestly, when we first posted the video,
it was just for family members.
Some of them couldn't make it to the homecoming,
so we're just posting it just for family and friends
to watch.
And then I don't know.
I think it was like a few days later,
it just went completely viral.
17 million views.
I mean, we're just regular people.
So I was like what the heck?
Yeah, because it was just so emotional.
It was so moving because you had never--
how old was Noah at that time?
Not even two months.
He was a month old.
So yeah.
And you've been married two years?
Two years.
And then when did you propose?
How did you propose?
So what happened, I took her outside to the park.
My dad kept like nudging me every time she walked by.
Like, when are going to go?
When are you going to go?
So I went outside, took her to the park right
in front of my cousins apartment complex,
and she was walking in front of me a little bit.
By the lead, I had her hand from the rear.
And I kind of just stopped, dropped to a knee.
And Ellen, I can't--
I don't remember everything after that.
I kind of blacked out.
But when I stood up, she said yes, and she was smiling.
I said yes.
[APPLAUSE]
And how did you meet?
Funny story.
We actually met on Instagram like early 2014.
You want to tell the story?
So I got a friend request on Instagram.
And I'm not like a big social media person.
He's not at all.
Everybody on my friend request are
like everybody on my Instagram.
It's friends or family.
But I got a friend request from her.
I looked at it, I thought wow, this girl is beautiful.
She's very well put together.
Her pictures seemed humble.
So I wanted to accept it.
I wanted to see if I can get to know her more, you know?
Yeah.
So I accepted it.
And then I had messaged her a day or two later.
I just-- hey, how are you?
My names Brandon.
I think you're very pretty and kind of just
hit it off from there.
I was a little off limits during that time.
So we just kept it a friendship, and then during that year,
later on that year, we--
he like told me how he felt about me.
And--
Wait, if you were off limits, why
did you want him to friend you?
No, honestly, I just--
that's the funny part because he looked at it
as oh, this girl's pretty.
Me, I was like, just another follower.
I didn't look at it like, oh, he's cute
or anything like that.
She was using you for followers.
She had thousands of followers, and I had like 90.
Wow.
So you weren't using him for followers?
Sort of.
Kind of.
You're building him up.
All right, so it worked out obviously.
Yes.
And so you went to--
you went out, and you were like on a boat, right?
You were at sea.
Yes, ma'am.
So that's really hard to keep in touch that way
because there's no service a lot.
Oh, yeah.
It was definitely hard.
Honestly, like sometimes he would call once a month.
And me having to go through pregnancy all by myself,
it was definitely difficult because I
would have doctors appointments and I couldn't update him
on the doctor's appointment.
So like weeks after--
Yeah.
But thankfully he was still able to call a few times.
OK, so you get--
how did you find out she was in labor?
So I was actually in chow line, on the ship.
So the thing with this chow line is
that there's thousands of Marines and sailors,
and there's only one chow line.
So it would take two to three hours to get food.
I finally been in line for like 2, 2 and 1/2 hours.
I was up at the front, getting ready to go.
I was hungry, and all of a sudden my first sergeant
comes rolling up.
And he was like, aye, [INAUDIBLE]
your wife's in labor.
Follow me.
So I was like, oh my goodness.
So--
You said wait until I eat, and then I'll be there?
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, he had been waiting for two hours.
And then--
So immediately the hunger just went away.
And I was filled with anxiety.
I was-- I couldn't-- it was actually happening.
So you were on the phone listening?
Yeah, but every time she made a grunt
I thought the baby was born.
So I was like, is he there?
Is he there?
I'm like, I can't talk.
I'm pushing.
All right, well, we know that you haven't had a honeymoon.
And so our friends at Shutterfly, their mission
is to share life's joy.
And we want to share the joy of a $20,000 check to you.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, wow.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much.
You are welcome.
Ellen, thank you so much.
You are welcome.
You are amazing.
Thank you.
Oh my god.
We'll be back.