The Parent Trip: Karen Meshkov and Matt Pillischer of Wyncote

THE PARENTS: Karen Meshkov, 37, and Matt Pillischer, 37, of Wyncote
THE CHILD: Asa Janos Pillischer, adopted Feb. 18, 2016
LENGTH OF TIME BETWEEN KAREN'S FIRST PHONE CALL TO ADOPTIONS WITH LOVE AND THE SECOND, "GOOD NEWS" CALL: Two hours

After the second failed IVF attempt, after the bill that was twice what they'd anticipated because the first try ended in an ectopic pregnancy that required two surgeries, Karen and Matt decided to put the baby project on hold.

Matt hated the clinical nature of it all: the endless doctor's appointments, the grim reports about Karen's hormone levels. Karen was weary of the grief that brimmed every time friends chatted about car seats and sleep training.

She turned to the practices that had given her solace in the past: yoga, meditation, sitting quietly with her sorrow and her questions. How do we want to make a family? What does it mean to be a parent? Is biology the only way?

She and Matt had talked about adoption - they'd even attended an agency's open house just before they began the IVF process - but now Karen plunged into films and books on the topic.

"I was curious and intimidated. [Adoption] seemed very foreign." Matt, wary of another "huge project," agreed to work with a local adoption agency. The paperwork was tedious - health records, criminal clearances, a home study - but the questions took a greater toll. Could they parent an older child? What about a baby born addicted to heroin? A child conceived through rape?

"We had to make so many choices that parents who get pregnant don't have to think about," Matt says. "And sometimes we judged ourselves for cutting off certain situations that we wouldn't want to have." After attending the agency's workshops and thinking about their capacities and their community, the couple knew they would welcome a healthy African American or mixed-race baby.

Over winter break in 2014, the two created their profile book. "You have to write your whole life story, and the whole time you're critiquing each other and trying to make it better," Matt says; Karen describes the endeavor as "like applying for grad school and a job and a grant at the same time."

Though many couples' books include "work," "family" and "leisure" sections, Karen and Matt chose different headers: Art. Activism. They tried to capture the story of their meeting, in eighth grade at Abington Friends School, where they performed a duet in the musical The Apple Tree, and their reconnection in a West Philly coffee shop in 2010.

They included glimpses of their wedding, a ceremony that blended Jewish, Quaker, and Buddhist elements. A photo of the movie theater marquee the night Matt's documentary about mass incarceration, Broken on All Sides, premiered in Oakland, Calif. Pictures that expressed their love of dance, theater, and film.

With the profile book completed, they "went live" - agency lingo for prospective parents' availability to be seen by birth mothers - in early 2015. What followed were months of silence.

In August, they met with a birth mother - hours in an Applebee's on City Avenue, sharing their journey of longing and disappointment. "It was a very intense experience," Karen recalls. "We saw that this could be our baby." At home, they hustled to paint the baby's room, set up the crib, and arrange for time off from work: Matt is a filmmaker and a lawyer who does divorce mediation; Karen publishes a magazine, Natural Awakenings of Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

Then the agency called: "Sorry... the mother gave birth and is planning on parenting."

"We were heartbroken," Karen says. "I believed in the birth mother like kids believe in Santa Claus. I felt there was a special bond between us, and I felt very betrayed."

Still, they yearned to be parents. They'd even moved from Pennington, N.J., to Wyncote so they could raise their child in a more racially mixed area. "But I felt like my energy was waning," Karen says. "Like I was on this really long journey, some kind of a mountain, and I only had a little bit left."

Finally, she phoned a Boston-area adoption agency whose director was a family friend. That same afternoon, the director called back. A client in Indiana was about to give birth. There had been an adoption match, but it wasn't going to work. Were Karen and Matt interested?

The next few weeks were a whirl: transferring their paperwork to the new agency, packing Karen's mother's SUV with diapers, a portable crib, and the items they would need for a possible stay of several weeks in Indiana.

"All the questions were still there: Is she going to go through with this? Is it going to happen? It was a huge leap of faith," Karen recalls. On the 11-hour drive to Kokomo, they were riveted by the audio version of Ta-Nehisi Coates' book Between the World and Me, a letter to his son about the anguish of growing up black in a white-dominated world.

"It was sobering," Karen says, "realizing that this was the reality our child is going to live in. But I'm hopeful, so I felt, 'Oh, thank God someone is speaking this so my son will have these resources.' "

The Comfort Inn in Kokomo smelled of cigarettes. They sent email from their laptops, sneaked into a double feature at a nearby movie theater, and checked their phones obsessively.

Then, finally, came the surreal moment outside a stranger's hospital room. "It's totally terrifying, like an arranged marriage," Karen says. "What is behind that door?"

What they found was a serene woman with a tiny infant in her arms. There were hugs and smiles, whispered thank-yous and tears. The birth mother held the baby out to Karen. Then she asked about his name. Asa means "healer," and Janos is for Matt's mother, Johanna, who died when he was 22. "

"I feel like he is healing us and the wound we had about having a family," Karen says. "And that's the work we're trying to do in the world as a couple and, now, as a family - to bring healing as much as we can."

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.