The Parent Trip: Lisa Yaffe Sprafkin and Neal Sprafkin, of Center City

The third meet-up was the charm.

Lisa had already strolled around the Philadelphia Museum of Art and played Scrabble with strangers who gathered via Meetup.com. This time was a happy hour at Fox & Hound, and that's where she met Neal - a low-key guy from Syracuse, N.Y., who loved travel and food and the twin brother he called his "wombmate."

Early on, they traded stories of endurance: Neal had recently run a marathon in Athens, following the contours of the original Greek 26.2-miler. Lisa had recovered from a traumatic accident 18 years earlier.

And something fused. Neal felt so at ease that he spilled a drink on himself; Lisa heard a whisper of her future. "I had a voice that said, 'This will be the man you marry.' And I tried to ignore it. The voice said it again. I tried to ignore it. The third time, I thought, 'OK. Great.' "

Over subsequent dates - movies, walks, a 3½-hour dinner at Zahav - they unfurled their life stories. Both came from close families that prized education. Neal's twin, along with his older brother and his father, had all attended Dartmouth, which was Lisa's alma mater.

That's where she was - a lacrosse player and triathlete about to enter her junior year - when she was bicycling along a New Hampshire road and a truck plowed into her at 55 miles per hour.

Five weeks in a coma. Five months at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital. A brain injury that slowed her speech and scotched her dream of becoming a doctor. She returned to Dartmouth and graduated only a year behind schedule.

"Lisa was open and candid about being in an accident," Neal remembers. "She's very tough and resilient, something I admire."

That resilience surfaced again when the two traveled to India for a family wedding. The country's sensory assault - streets thronged with beggars, rumbling train rides, an episode of the intestinal distress travelers call "Delhi belly" - only strengthened the couple's connection.

Shortly after that trip, Neal knelt down one night and showed Lisa a ring set with a stone that had belonged to his mother and grandmother. Her answer: Of course.

At their 2011 wedding, Lisa's parents toasted their daughter's long journey to that moment. "They never thought this day would come," Lisa says. Neal's twin, who works in reproductive health, wished them well in the procreation department. Guests cried and laughed.

For several years, the couple tried to conceive: injections of fertility drugs that turned Neal into a "mini-medic," dozens of doctors' appointments. "I never got pregnant," Lisa says. "The eggs never fertilized."

But she didn't abandon hope. "You just keep plugging on, trying new things," she says. The next new thing was IVF, using her eggs and Neal's sperm; the procedure resulted in more than a dozen embryos, all of which needed to be tested for viability.

The lab results arrived in the mail: Just one of those embryos was free of chromosomal abnormalities. Lisa remembers staring at the paper, thinking, "Thank God there's one. That's enough to go on."

It was clear that her body could not incubate a baby; with the help of a fertility specialist and a lawyer, they began to consider gestational carriers. Meantime, their embryo remained in frozen limbo.

The process was paved with doubts. "How does it work?" Neal remembers wondering. "Something so intimate, bringing life into the world and developing a relationship with a stranger." Both recall the surreal moment when they walked into an Appleby's and met the woman who might carry their child - a married mother of three who lived in the Philadelphia region.

"I was hoping she'd be sweet and understanding and open," Lisa says. "And she was." There were more held-breath moments: Would their lone embryo survive the thawing process? Would the transfer work?

"We were on pins and needles, trying to be realistic," Neal says. "Then the clinic called with the good news."

The couple attended every one of their carrier's prenatal appointments. They watched, in sonograms, as their daughter grew from bean-size to baby. They listened to the small ka-thump of her heart.

"I was scared something would happen and we'd lose the baby," Lisa says. "I just had to rely on luck. And trust."

The day Sydney was born - an induction at 40 weeks, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania - Lisa and Neal, along with the carrier's husband, crowded the delivery room. Neal cut the cord; Lisa was the first to cuddle their daughter skin-to-skin.

"This was what we'd been hoping for, praying for, what we'd been excited about and cautious about," Neal says. "The first thing that came to my mind was: finally."

Lisa had never worried about loving a child, but she did wonder how her injury would impact parenting. "I get overwhelmed and stressed easily. I need more sleep than the average person."

One night, shortly after they brought Sydney home, Lisa slammed into a wall as she was hurrying to pick up the baby; when she glanced in the mirror and saw blood gushing from her brow, she passed out.

But there are other, more tranquil moments: the first time the three ate dinner together as a family; when Lisa holds Sydney's legs and Neal grasps her arms, and they bicycle their daughter's tiny limbs, helping her feel what it's like to move through the world.

In a few months, they will bring Sydney to meet their carrier's whole family. They'll say thank you one more time. They'll know that those words can't contain everything they feel.

They plan to tell their daughter the truth about how she came into their lives, a story of luck and grit. "I just know that you should never give up," Lisa says. "That worked for me, with my injury. It worked for me with this, too. You just have to keep moving forward. As long as you're trying, it's happening."

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. EndText