Long road to parenthood

They figured every intrauterine insemination might be the lucky one. So Phil and Monica recorded each procedure on video. “We thought it would be cool to show our kid: This is how you were made,” Phil says.

But after seven attempts — two in early 2020, then five more after a long COVID-19 hiatus during which they tried conceiving naturally — they were starting to downsize their hopes.

At the beginning, each month’s disappointment provoked tears, Monica says. “After that, I lowered my expectations. We talked about it: If we couldn’t have kids, where would we go? What would we do? We said we would travel more. We said we would accept it.”

But they weren’t ready to give up. Both had always wanted children — Monica thought four would be ideal — and began trying soon after their 2018 wedding.

Actually, it was weddings, plural. First, they honored Monica’s heritage with a modified Cambodian ceremony (one day instead of the usual three) that included a parade, the groom asking the bride’s parents for her hand in marriage, and a four-hour event with three changes of ceremonial clothing.

Three months later, they followed Phil’s Catholic and Filipino traditions with a church wedding, an occasion indelible because Phil had a flu so severe that he barely wobbled through the day; a few days afterward, he was hospitalized with a throat infection.

By that time, they’d known one another for 12 years. They met while in college — Monica was at Penn State while Phil attended Drexel — but each was dating someone else at the time. After graduation, they still had a circle of mutual friends.

“I didn’t see it coming that we would get together,” Monica says. “He thinks I didn’t like him. I’m very introverted, so maybe that’s why. I didn’t talk much to him in the beginning.”

Despite their opposite traits — Phil is outgoing, while Monica’s shy; she was raised in Philly while he grew up in the suburbs — they reconnected in 2012. “He kissed me at my 25th birthday party” at the now-shuttered Rumor nightclub, Monica says.

Phil was living in Edison, N.J., at the time, while Monica was in Philly; they talked every day, and he made frequent visits. But that distance paled in comparison to the global span when Phil spent a few months in China and Hong Kong for work in 2016. They Skyped daily.

“I knew if we could make it through that, we could make it through anything,” Phil says. He bought a ring and planned to propose while the two were on a trip to Madrid. He’d figured on a picturesque moment in front of the fountain at the Royal Palace of Madrid. But after drinks in the hotel with colleagues, then dinner with another couple, it was midnight before they wandered to the appointed spot, and the fountain was off.

“I didn’t say much beyond, ‘Will you marry me?’ ” Phil says. “I had planned to say other words, but I was pretty nervous.”

Following the wedding, they were eager to start a family. After a year of trying on their own, a fertility specialist diagnosed a partially blocked fallopian tube and recommended IUIs. And when those failed, they began preparing for a cycle of IVF.

Meanwhile, a few of Phil’s relatives had been urging the couple to visit the Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Asbury, N.J., and offer a prayer for fertility.

“We’re not too big into superstitions, but right before we were going to do IVF, we thought, ‘Let’s just go to this shrine and say the prayer,’ ” Phil recalls. They made the visit last May. And a month later, before the first IVF cycle, Monica found herself staring at two lines on a drugstore test stick.

“I’d never seen a positive pregnancy stick before,” she says. “I took the stick and walked into Phil’s home office and said, ‘I’m pregnant.’ ” By morning, she’d tried a total of six tests. All were positive.

Still, “I didn’t believe it until I saw my ultrasound,” Monica says. “We saw the little ring progress into kind of a gummy-bear-looking baby. By week 12, it really hit me that I was pregnant.”

For most of the nine months, it was an easy ride: no morning sickness, but a voracious appetite and an active baby. Monica chose to dismiss the counsel and superstitions of friends and relatives: She didn’t eat ginger or dates, and she continued to change fitted sheets on the bed even though a Chinese friend said that was bad luck.

Toward the end of her pregnancy, doctors became concerned about higher-than-normal levels of amniotic fluid and the baby’s lack of movement. Two days before Monica’s due date, they suggested an induction.

“I didn’t know how to feel about being induced,” she remembers. “But I was overwhelmed already. I said, ‘Let’s just get the baby out.’ ” That took 14 hours, an epidural, and a “waiting game” until it was time to push.

“I sometimes say I felt really tired and like the pushing took forever,” Phil says. “But all I was doing was giving words of encouragement and counting to 10. It was an amazing experience, seeing a human being come out of Monica. It’s crazy.”

At home, relatives descended, and the dog — a half Maltese, half shih tzu named Kilo — kept her distance. Their circuitous journey toward parenthood has been a gift of perspective, Phil and Monica say.

“It was an eye-opener. A lot of women don’t speak of the [infertility] struggles,” says Monica.

“As we’ve gone through this, we’ve found out about other people who are going through the same thing,” says Phil. “The fact that we were able to conceive and had a child gives other people hope. We never lost hope, but we had to be patient. Sometimes you have to go through a lot before you get to this point.”