The Parent Trip: Julianne and Eric Aumen of Phoenixville

THE PARENTS: Julianne Ulrich Aumen, 27, and Eric Aumen, 31, of Phoenixville
THE KIDS: Gianna Marie, 6; Petal Magdalene, born October 31, 2015
ONE OF JULIANNE'S AFFIRMATIONS FOR LABOR: You're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, even if things go awry.

The slack-line, a webbed strap slung between two trees in a park near Pottstown, wobbled when Julianne tried to walk across. "I need to hold your hand," she told Eric.

He'd been hoping for that. The two had met a few months earlier, in fall 2013; Julianne, a professional makeup artist, was hired to work on a short film Eric was making. When he proposed the slack-lining date, Julianne was intrigued: At least it wasn't the typical dinner and a movie.

And when she said yes, Eric's heart hammered. "I felt like a teenager," he recalls. "It was the best date I ever had."

There was barely time for a second one before Eric left town to shoot a film - first, on a road trip to Phoenix, then to Thailand. He sent postcards from across the U.S.; then, at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, where vintage cars, splashed with tourist graffiti, are buried nose-first in the ground, Eric spray-painted Julianne's name.

Each night, they traded questions by Skype or FaceTime: What's your favorite book? What would you do if you were stuck on another planet? By the time Eric returned from Thailand, they were a couple. Still, he balked at the idea of marriage and children; he wasn't sure he wanted a baby, and, besides, their finances were shaky.

"But I'm not the type of person who cares about material things. I realized: Why am I letting that concern stand in the way?" One night, he announced, "I think I'm ready." The next morning, he went out to buy a ring.

A few months later, Eric noticed Julianne cleaning the kitchen with unusual zest. The next morning, she reached for her Lady-Comp, a computerized fertility monitor that, based on body temperature, flashes a red light at ovulation, a green light for "safe times," and a multicolor display - Julianne and Eric called it "party lights" - for pregnancy.

The monitor lit up.

So did they. "I had felt this very palpable presence of a baby wanting to be born," Julianne says. As for Eric, "I'd always wondered how I would react [to news of a pregnancy]. But it was great."

He'd been much more anxious - terrified, in fact - about meeting Julianne's daughter from an earlier relationship. Gianna was nearly 4 when the couple met, and Eric recalls fretting about what to give her for Christmas; he finally settled on a vinyl Barbie purse she could decorate with markers.

Julianne was 20 when she became pregnant the first time, and she spent the final month on bed rest, watching Scooby-Doo reruns. Despite her hope for a natural birth, she ended up with a last-minute epidural and some post-partum regrets. "My mom and my aunts had all had natural births; I was disappointed that I'd let myself down."

But Gianna's birth was also a spur to action. When the baby came, a week after Julianne's 21st birthday, "I thought: It's time to make my life the way I want it to be."

She left Gianna's father and moved in with her mother, whose flexible hours as a massage therapist allowed her to babysit when Julianne worked. For several years, she barely dated. Then she met Eric and thought: "Maybe I will actually have a partner in life."

Julianne was three months' pregnant when the two were married, barefoot, under a wooden arch Eric built, in the park where they'd swayed across that slack-line. Julianne sewed her own dress and Gianna's flower-girl frock; they danced to Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic." Friends and relatives brought food. The entire wedding cost $3,000.

In the meantime, Julianne was determined to make this pregnancy different from her first. She'd found solace in meditation and decided to create a set of hand-drawn affirmation cards with phrases such as, "I accept myself completely, here and now," and, "I can rest deeply between contractions."

When she felt "twingey pains," followed by a sense of "something whirling inside my uterus . . . then a big pop, and my water broke," she focused on those cards and the meditations she'd written to accompany them.

Julianne's mother and Gianna joined them at Lifecycle WomanCare, a birth center in Bryn Mawr. Just before the contractions grew fierce, Eric, Julianne, and Gianna pulled together in a tight embrace. "This will be the last time we have a family hug as just the three of us," Eric said.

Then Gianna, who was 5 at the time, pressed damp towels to her mother's forehead and echoed Eric's words of encouragement. "It's OK, Mom," she said. "It's only going to hurt for a little, and it'll all be worth it."

When the baby emerged, after 15 minutes of pushing, Eric was the one to catch her. "I just wanted her to cry," he recalls. "I wanted to hear that she was healthy. And I was trying not to drop her."

Parenting is different this time around, Julianne says. With Gianna, "I bought into all the gimmicks: You have to have a swing, and a bouncy chair, and two nursing pillows, a jumper, and a walker."

With Petal, she and Eric have embraced a pared-down approach: slings for baby-wearing, cloth diapers, a $5 bouncy chair from a yard sale. Parenting, they believe, is less about listening to books or commercials or other people and more about tuning into your own deepest instincts.

Eric is learning to set aside his logical approach to problems. "Being a parent, you have to listen a little more to your heart than to your brain." And Julianne is finding joy in simplicity: Gianna coaxing a laugh from Petal with a funny face; the baby's hand grasping her own when she nurses. She's marketing her affirmation cards through a website, Mama Luminous, and plans to take Petal with her on any gigs as a makeup artist. Her primary job now is with her girls, "helping them to be the best humans they can be."

Welcome to parenthood! If you've become a parent - for the first, second or fifth time - within the last six months, e-mail us why we should feature your story: parents@phillynews.com. Giving birth, adopting, or becoming a stepparent or guardian all count. Unfortunately, we can't respond individually to all submissions. If your story is chosen, you will be contacted.