Creating a family with science, serendipity

THE PARENTS: Kateryna (Katya) Tulio, 38, and Michael Angelo Tulio, 43, of Mount Airy

THE KIDS: Azrael Valentin and Anastasia Gnossienne, born June 20, 2020

THEIR NAMES: Azrael for the “angel of transition,” Michael says, and Anastasia for the Russian princess. Their middle names come from their parents’ love story: Valentin because they first met on Valentine’s Day, and Gnossienne for the Erik Satie piece Michael cued up when they swapped rings.

When it came to getting pregnant, Katya staked her faith in science. Michael hoped for serendipity. In the end, both got their wish.

But before that — before the intrauterine inseminations or the wedding in Ukraine or the ring exchange at home — they were two single, career-driven people in New York who both happened to swipe right on Tinder. It was Valentine’s Day 2014.

A few weeks later, they met at a wine bar near Katya’s apartment. She was 90 minutes late. “I had a really great workout at the gym that day, and I didn’t want to cut it short,” she says. “Once I got home, I wanted to make sure I looked good.”

When she walked in, Michael says, “my first impressions were: Wow.”

They talked about all the places they’d lived: Ukraine, Turkey, Pakistan, and Poland (for Katya), and the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Holland, and Italy (for Michael). They drank wine. They made out at the bar.

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Initially, both were guarded about dating — ”we didn’t want to give up our freedom,” Michael explains — but within six months, Katya and her King Charles Spaniel, Raphael, moved into his apartment. To relieve the stress of moving day, they fired foam plugs at each other with Nerf guns.

“I was excited. [Living together] was like an adventure,” Katya says. For Michael, it was more nerve-racking: “I had always lived alone. I was like a cat: I enjoyed my own space, my quiet time. My privacy was going to be invaded. Would there be clashes of style? I was very nervous.”

Katya felt eager to move ahead — marriage, then children — but Michael had ambivalence about both. “I didn’t see the pros or the cons of marriage. ‘Why does the paper license prove that I love you?’ ” he thought. And, as one of seven children, with 17 nieces and nephews, he’d witnessed how challenging parenthood could be.

“I had a career where I was traveling 60% of the year. Did I want to give up that lifestyle?”

But Katya was adamant; both her mother and grandmother, who raised her, were single mothers, and she longed for the tradition of a ceremony. In January 2018, Michael orchestrated a surprise ring exchange in their Brooklyn apartment: flowers, candles, music, and friends.

They married that September in Ukraine: a week of festivities with family and friends from across the world. “We all got a chance to hang out with each other,” Michael recalls. “It wasn’t just, ‘Thanks for coming — great to see you.’ ”

After the wedding, Katya — who applies her project-manager mind-set to most things in life — wanted to consult a fertility clinic and make a plan. “She wanted to be pregnant yesterday,” Michael says. “She made me realize: What am I waiting for?”

After trying on their own without success, they tried three intrauterine inseminations. The fourth cycle ended in a miscarriage. The next step was IVF: an egg retrieval that resulted in 10 healthy embryos, but battered Katya physically and emotionally.

The couple was adamant with their physician: Transfer only one embryo. They didn’t want to risk the strain that a twin pregnancy would mean for Katya. But when the lines on the at-home pregnancy tests grew darker and darker, and when blood work at the clinic showed her hormone levels were atypically high, Katya began to wonder if the single embryo had split.

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“When we came for the first ultrasound, the doctor was very quiet. I could see two dots. There were definitely two babies,” she recalls. They opted not to know the babies’ genders, but pictured two identical girls — maybe they’d wear matching Halloween costumes like the creepy twins in The Shining, Michael joked — or two boys.

“My entire pregnancy, I was terrified that something would go wrong,” Katya says. “I could not see, believe, or feel that it would end up with us having healthy, whole babies.”

Michael’s top concern was Katya’s health. “Secondary, I thought: Are we going to have enough room? How are we going to manage in the middle of a pandemic?”

The two remained closely connected during the pregnancy — so emotionally entwined that Michael seemed to absorb Katya’s morning sickness, sometimes vomiting in the bathroom while she went for a run. She recalls an occasion when the two were at a diner, and she felt a wave of nausea crest, then subside “while he was turning green, and I could actually have breakfast. He took the morning sickness from me.”

At seven months, they moved from New York to Mount Airy, to be closer to Michael’s family. Katya pored over books on natural birth and did two sessions of guided meditation. “Someone told me, ‘It’s a moment of pain. Don’t try to get out of the tunnel. Just be in it. Let the pain be your power to get the baby out.’ ”

She was induced at 38 weeks. Abington Hospital was in full COVID-19 mode: everyone in masks; no leaving the room except to get food. The first twin — Baby A, Azrael, a boy — was born at 11:27 p.m. Katya was determined that the second baby would have the same birthday. “I really pushed hard,” she recalls, and Baby B emerged at 11:40.

This one was a girl. “We were shocked,” Katya says. “Wait — how did that happen?” Later, they figured it out: “We are the rare case where I conceived one baby with IVF and another baby, around the same time, was conceived naturally.”

The first weeks were “sheer survival mode,” Michael says. Feeding, burping, and diapering weren’t hard; he’d had plenty of experience with nieces and nephews. What stunned him — what still stuns him, especially during a 2 a.m. wake-up — was the emotional weight of parenthood, “the utter surrender you’re about to give these children. Their vulnerability overwhelms me to tears. Your core job is to keep them alive.”