Welcoming twins into their circle of love

THE PARENTS: Brent Halsey, 33, and Ian Li, 33, of Graduate Hospital

THE KIDS: River Rende Halsey-Li and Astrid Flora Halsey-Li, born July 19, 2022

THEIR NAMES: Rende is Ian’s father’s name; Flora is for Brent’s maternal grandmother. And the combination of their first names in Chinese means the expression for galaxy: a river of stars.

Ian is not fond of public displays of affection. But there they were, in a busy New Orleans park, just after Brent proposed marriage, with a photographer barking commands: “Gaze into his eyes! More passion!”

“I’d picked this park that looked pretty and seemed a little bit out of the way of the French Quarter,” Brent recalls. “But it was so crowded, with people all around. I’m telling him this little speech, and he’s mortified: What are you doing? Then he realized what was going on.”

In some ways, the moment was a role-reversal: Typically, Ian is the planner of the duo, while Brent has a more laissez-faire approach to life. They met as college seniors at Duke, when both escorted female friends to a sorority formal and found themselves seated at the same table.

“I think that’s what attracted me to [Ian] was his confidence. He knows what he wants and is a little more self-assured than I am sometimes,” Brent says.

“Brent was very kind and comfortable with himself,” says Ian. “I really appreciated that, especially as someone still trying to figure myself out.”

They dated throughout their final semester; after graduation, they backpacked for a month through Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Malaysia. The future remained a question mark, but “we focused on being in the here and now vs. dwelling on what would be when we got back,” Ian says.

He landed a consulting job in Manhattan and persuaded Brent to take classes at Columbia so the two could live together. In 2014, Brent was accepted at Temple University’s medical school, and the two moved to Philadelphia.

For Ian, a New York native, that was a leap. “I knew essentially no one [in Philly],” he says. “It was a conscious effort to invest in this relationship and say, ‘I’m all in.’ ” It helped to gradually meet a group of friends they now refer to as their “Philly Pham.”

The engagement in New Orleans happened in December 2015. They were married in March 2017 — 260 guests in the Franklin Institute’s Fels Planetarium. Ian remembers looking into the crowd and noticing the tears. “So many people were touched and happy for us. When else are you going to be at your most vulnerable in front of hundreds of your closest friends and family?”

Early in their relationship, they’d wondered aloud: What will our kids be like? Brent, who has a twin sister and three brothers, wanted a large family, and fatherhood was an imperative for Ian, too. “My parents came from Hong Kong to provide for my sister and me; they gave up everything. I always knew I wanted kids.”

Their “baby fever” rose when Brent’s twin sister had a daughter in May 2020. The couple had already traded their Rittenhouse apartment for a house in the Graduate Hospital area; they decided to search for an egg donor and a gestational surrogate so their children could be genetically related to them.

“We had the resources to pursue that option,” Ian says. “Not every couple can do that. We’re very fortunate. How much intentional energy and time and resources it took surprised me.”

Along the way, there were delays and disappointments, including two potential gestational surrogates who changed their minds. They found a third surrogate, a woman in Lancaster named Amy whom Ian describes as “an angel — super-professional, very understanding, and compassionate.”

The first embryo transfer failed. “We were so optimistic,” Brent recalls. “We created the embryos, signed all these contracts, found someone to carry the embryos, and … it still doesn’t work. We felt kind of desperate: Is this ever going to work out?”

But Ian’s can-do-it outlook powered them through. “You really have to have the energy and the willpower to keep going and say, ‘It’s going to be worth it.’ ”

A second transfer in late September of last year also failed. At some point, Brent was on a plane and glanced out the window to see the flight path crossing a squiggle of blue. River was high on their list of baby names; he took it as a good sign.

The third transfer was the day after Thanksgiving. “When the clinic called and said, ‘Congratulations,’ my entire body went numb,” Ian says. “My vision went black for a second; I lost my concept of reality.”

Not long after, another call came with results of the first ultrasound. “The doctor said, ‘You might want to sit down,’ ” Brent recalls. “We thought she meant it was bad news. But she said, ‘No, there’s two.’ It was crazy; you could see the two yolk sacs. It was a very exciting surprise.”

When they told friends and relatives that the single embryo had split and that they were expecting twins, reactions ranged from “Good luck!” to “Watch out!”

“I never felt that way,” Ian says. “I couldn’t wait to have two. Your child’s always going to have a built-in best friend.”

Throughout the pregnancy, they stayed in regular touch with Amy; they sent chocolates, booked her a facial, and sometimes met her for lunch after prenatal appointments.

The birth was a scheduled C-section at Lancaster General Health — an anxious hour from the moment of the twins’ arrival until a nurse wheeled two bassinets to the men’s adjacent room and said, “These are your daughters. Do you want to hold them?”

Now they are stunned by the small moments: a burp, a smile, a quiet interlude of reading to the babies before bed. “Now, reading a book or watching a movie, I feel a more gut-level understanding of what the parents in the show are going through,” Brent says.

For Ian, parenthood has been expansive. “You know how people say you have a second stomach for dessert? I think you have a second heart for your children. Even if you’re tired and confused and frustrated, you summon up the energy and love.”