For Emily and Aaron Kleinle, their family is complete

THE PARENTS: Emily Kleinle, 33, and Aaron Kleinle, 43, of Pennsport

THE CHILD: Winona Katherine, 10 months, adopted Nov. 16, 2020

A SURREAL STRETCH: Several days in a Las Vegas hospital, postpartum and in the midst of COVID-19, when they weren’t allowed out of their room, so they rotated sleeping spaces — one on the bed, one in the chair.

The bridge was out.

The span to Stone Harbor — the very place where, on an earlier trip to South Jersey, Aaron had watched Emily run amid splashing waves and thought, “I’m going to be with her forever” — was still under repair after damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Emily asked for his phone so she could find a detour; Aaron refused, because the phone contained the words he planned to say when he proposed.

He suggested they park and go look at the water. On the beach, he handed Emily a small box containing … not a ring, but an iPod and headphones.

She hit “play.” The music was by Train, a San Francisco rock band they’d heard numerous times in concert. The song was “Marry Me.”

They did, eight months later, in an epic snowstorm. When Emily had a meltdown — news that the tablecloths might not arrive was the tipping point for her stress — Aaron broke the don’t-see-the-bride-before-the-wedding rule to give her a hug.

“I realized: It doesn’t matter — the tablecloths, the snow, the state of emergency. It was that moment when I realized none of that mattered,” Emily says.

When they met, Emily was an aspiring educator, and she broached the subject of children on their second or third date. The two worked at Amada in Old City — she was a hostess there during her senior year in college, and he was general manager — and forged a strong friendship through high-adrenaline weekend shifts, creating funny code names for restaurant guests, working in tandem under pressure.

The 10-year age difference didn’t faze them. “She was the most well-versed and well-read 23-year-old I’d ever met,” Aaron says. In turn, Emily felt drawn to his warmth and gregariousness. His family welcomed her. She coaxed him to travel more, to try kayaking and bike riding.

Aaron says he’s not fond of change; he worried about how a child would alter their relationship. “But I’d always thought that with the right partner, I would consider [parenthood]. Emily was that right partner.”

First, they focused on careers: Emily went back to school for a teaching certificate, then a master’s in education, while Aaron worked his way to a management position at Aramark. After four years of marriage, they were ready for a baby.

But Emily was plagued with health challenges: an ovarian cyst and persistent periods that could only be stopped with an IUD and hormones. “It was a bittersweet choice,” she says, ending three years of medical anguish but closing off the possibility of pregnancy.

They turned to adoption — a prospect familiar for Emily, who has two adopted cousins, but completely new to Aaron. It helped to meet with an attorney who worked with A Baby Step Adoption; she was frank in answering their questions about timelines, finances, the risks of a failed adoption.

Aaron likens the adoption process to “voluntary couples therapy plus a full IRS audit plus applying for a mortgage.” They assembled a profile book that featured their extended families — both are close with their parents, and Emily’s younger sister had lived with the couple while attending law school — along with their three dogs, their love for the city, and their commitment to education.

In April 2019, they were matched with a birth mother in Alabama who was due in early October. But shortly before the birth, she stopped responding to Emily’s texts; after the baby was born, she decided to parent.

“It was crushing,” Emily says. “Were we ready to do this again, emotionally? Could we afford it? We took October off and spent that time recuperating, eating a lot of ice cream. But even at that time of sadness, we both knew we wanted to continue.”

On Halloween, they submitted their profile to another birth mother, 18 weeks pregnant and living with her boyfriend in Nevada. When they talked by phone with both birth parents, the woman said she’d been struck by their values. “When I looked at your profile, I thought it was the kind of family I wish I had had,” she told them.

When the birth mother and her boyfriend broke up, Emily and Aaron helped her find another place to live; they sent her kitchenware, towels, and sheets for the new place. In turn, she texted updates from her prenatal visits, ultrasounds, and pictures.

On March 22, in the midst of COVID-19 uncertainty, they flew to Las Vegas. They brought a takeout dinner to the birth mother; they drove up a strangely deserted casino strip. And then they got a call: I’m in labor.

They picked up the birth mother and sped to the hospital, where only Emily was allowed in as a support person. In the delivery room, she held the birth mother’s hand while she pushed. Winona was born two hours later.

“Emily texted me, and I wept in the backseat of a Chrysler minivan in the parking lot of the hospital,” Aaron recalls.

The next three days — birth mothers in Nevada have 72 hours to sign papers terminating their parental rights — were a whirl of emotion. “So completely in love but so terrified that it’s going to come crashing down,” Emily says. But the birth mom did sign, then came to the hospital to say goodbye.

She gave the family a cross she’d made of palm fronds. Emily and Aaron gave her a photo snapped in the delivery room — the birth mom and just-born Winona. Another copy of the photo would go in the baby’s room at home.

And that’s the image indelible for Aaron, after another week in Nevada and a red-eye flight home: finally settling Winona in her room, which features constellations on the walls and Winnie-the-Pooh on the bookshelves.

He came downstairs. Emily and their dachshund, Lola, had crashed on the couch. “OK,” he thought. “Our family’s complete now.”