Finding the right time for a pregnancy

THE PARENTS: Monika Wasik, 32, and David Dunning, 33, of Graduate Hospital

THE CHILD: Olek Jerzy, born March 28, 2022

HIS NAME: They wanted a name that reflected Monika’s Polish heritage, would be spelled the same in both languages, and easy for English-speakers to pronounce. His middle name is for Monika’s grandfather.

Monika, a nurse practitioner who works in women’s health, knew what the tech would be looking for during her 20-week anatomy scan, while David, on a postdoc position in Oxford, England, tuned in via FaceTime.

There was the baby’s brain, intact. All four chambers of the heart. Vertebrae like a pearlescent sine curve.

But she’d forgotten that a transvaginal ultrasound would be part of the procedure. “I’m looking at the numbers,” Monika recalled, “and thinking those are really small numbers. I think I have a short cervix. I think I’m at risk of preterm labor.”

That was, in fact, the doctor’s conclusion. It meant a course of vaginal progesterone — and a stepped-up sense of anxiety, at least for the next four weeks. David came back to the United States briefly, so the two could attend a friend’s wedding; he returned again over winter break.

“For the rest of the pregnancy, we were still nervous about heightened risk, but with every day that passed, that risk got a little less scary,” he says.

Monika remembers incremental relief at each marker: 24 weeks meant infant viability; at 28 weeks, preterm babies have better outcomes in the NICU. “At 32 weeks, I thought: I can’t believe I made it here.” And she cheered the 36-week milestone because it meant she could give birth at Bryn Mawr’s Lifecycle WomanCare and be attended by midwives.

Meantime, with the omicron variant spiking in the United Kingdom, David was able to remain here and teach remotely as their end-of-March due date neared.

They always knew they wanted children. Eventually. But parenthood was a remote prospect when the two met as first-year University of Pennsylvania students, both from the Philly suburbs and with a shared affinity for indie rock.

“It took us two-and-a-half years to realize that maybe we hung out all the time because we were into each other,” Monika says. In the middle of junior year, she finally told David how she felt about him. “Fortunately, the stars aligned and he reciprocated.”

After graduation, she lived in Argentina for a year, while David had a fellowship at Cambridge. There was one year of geographic alignment in Philadelphia before they parted again; David moved to Princeton to start a doctoral program in the history of science while Monika pursued an accelerated bachelor’s of science in nursing at Penn.

Their engagement involved a conversation — ”I don’t think there should be any doubt about whether the answer will be yes,” Monika says — then a proposal, with a ring they’d codesigned using diamonds that had belonged to David’s grandmother.

They wed in October 2017 at Material Culture. Monika still gets flutters in her stomach when she hears the songs that played as each of them walked down the aisle: “Coffee” by Sylvan Esso for David’s processional and “Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells for hers.

At one point, when David was interviewing for graduate school, the topic of parental benefits came up. His doctoral program would be six years; might they be ready to conceive during that time? David thought it was too soon; Monika thought she might be ready.

“I would refer to our ‘future hypothetical child,’ ” she laughs.

When David landed a postdoc position at Oxford; the plan was for him to be there for two years, beginning in June 2020. The pandemic upended that; instead, he taught remotely until October 2021. Their support network was based in Philly; Monika was out of school and working as a nurse practitioner. It seemed like a good time to get pregnant.

One Monday, after work, she impulsively went upstairs and used a drugstore test stick. They looked at it together; the answer was clear.

But Monika, who had seen plenty of early pregnancy losses while providing prenatal care, hedged when she told people. “I would say, ‘I had a positive pregnancy test,’ not ‘I’m pregnant,’ ” she remembers.

For David, “it took a couple months for it to really feel real. It was all happening to Monika in the beginning.”

Mostly, she was tired. She’d sip lemon water and sneak crackers under her mask at work; she’d ride an electric Indego bike to the office because it required no effort. And once they neared 40 weeks, her anxiety shifted from worries about preterm labor to fears of a hospital birth with a cascade of interventions.

At a prenatal appointment a few days before her due date, the nurse practitioner had a strange look on her face. “You’re five centimeters dilated,” she said. Monika gasped: “Are you kidding me?”

That was a Thursday. By Sunday — after days of walking sideways up the steps of the Art Museum, hanging out in sweatpants, and watching part of the Oscars with friends — she thought, “I’m never going to have this baby.”

It was barely Monday morning, 1 a.m., when she woke up with a start. Contractions were five minutes apart … then three … then she was on all fours with her head on an exercise ball. In the car, on the way to the birth center, she half-knelt in the backseat, eyes closed, fighting an urge to push.

It took three more hours, pushing on a birth stool while David sat in front of her, a mirror balanced beneath. Olek’s hand was by his face; finally, a midwife nudged it and the baby slithered out. “It still felt not real,” Monika says. “What? He’s outside of me?”

For David, who never thought of himself as a “baby person,” it’s been stunning to feel so intensely connected with Olek. And Monika has found truth in the parenthood cliché that infancy is the “longest, shortest time.”

Sometimes she’ll lament dramatically, “Is he ever going to fall asleep again?” even though she knows that eventually he will. “There are those moments when you feel like it’s forever.”