The Parent Trip: Allison Constable and Marcus Richie of Morton

One Halloween, they dressed as Taylor Swift and Kanye West. Another year, they went as Katy Perry and Elmo. And for their friend's annual costume bash in 2012, she was Miss Piggy and he was Kermit.

That night, in front of 30 people and their miniature poodle, Lexi, with Adele's cover of "Make You Feel My Love" playing and a friend videotaping every moment, Marcus proposed and Allison said yes. "I shook like a leaf the rest of the night," she recalls.

They'd known each other since ninth grade at Philadelphia's High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. She edited the literary magazine; he was the computer geek and class clown. They dated for a while during college, then broke up and remet via AOL instant messaging six years later.

Their wedding, on a 97-degree October afternoon, bore their unmistakable stamp. Bride and groom wore their signature Converse sneakers (purple for her, red for him). "Fools Rush In" played while Allison walked down the aisle, and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" was their exit song. The reception featured homemade sangria, karaoke, and a photo booth.

Then they got down to baby business. "We definitely knew we wanted kids," says Allison, who had worked as a nanny and majored in early-childhood education. "We had names picked out even before we were pregnant."

Marcus, with six aunts and uncles on his father's side, had grown up amid a gaggle of cousins. "I had this natural 'baby magnet,' " he says.

A year after their wedding, Allison miscarried at eight weeks. She'd lost grandparents, but this felt different: a puncture of so many dreams and hopes. Marcus, the perennial glass-half-full guy, kept insisting, "It's going to happen," and Allison drew solace from hearing other women's stories of pregnancy loss.

Within four months, she was pregnant again, though it took three drugstore tests to convince her. She slipped the tests onto an oven shelf along with a note card that bore an image of a loaf of bread.

"Hey, there's something in the oven," she said when Marcus got home.

"We were supposed to order pizza that night," he recalls. "I opened the oven and was shocked. I kept saying, 'What? What?' "

The two, still jolted from the first loss, didn't tell anyone for weeks, not even after they heard the heartbeat. All the way home from that appointment, Marcus kept imitating the percussive, helicopterlike sound. "It was surreal: There's another heartbeat that we created," he says.

They also started a private tradition of going out to eat after each prenatal appointment, working their way through an alphabet of restaurants: Ariano, Bertucci's, Cosi, Dunkin' Donuts.

At first, Allison craved salty foods; later, she hankered for Lucky Charms and Trix cereals. In the meantime, she walked, took classes on breast-feeding and baby care, and prepared for an unmedicated labor at Lifecycle WomanCare.

An app on Allison's phone delivered weekly updates about the baby's development and size: Now it's as a big as a plum. Now, a cantaloupe. Each week, Allison shared that news with her parents and in-laws. Her mother took to calling her future grandchild "Baby Plum," then "Baby Cantaloupe." Once Allison and Marcus shared their first-choice names - Isabelle and Isaiah - it was "Baby I" for the duration.

The two had made it as far as "T" in their post-appointment restaurant hop when Allison began having contractions. Heeding the midwife's counsel that she needed to be well-fortified for labor, Allison drove to a nearby Trader Joe's to stock up on salmon and spinach. Her contractions continued intermittently all that day, and the next.

When they arrived at the birth center, she was five centimeters dilated. She and Marcus walked and walked; every two steps, she staggered through waves of pain. Hours passed. She was exhausted, dehydrated, and, increasingly, in despair as other women arrived at the birth center, delivered their babies, and went home.

"I broke down in tears. Everybody was coming in and having babies and leaving. I was still there," she remembers.

Marcus never left her side. "It's a marathon," he reminded her. He offered sips of Gatorade and steady encouragement, drawn from his days as an athlete and basketball coach. "Focus," he told her. "Your body is made for this. Find something in the room to stare at and block everything else out."

This was the man, after all, who had taught her to parallel park, play tennis, and understand football. "I was focused on him and his voice and pushing like hell to get her out." Finally, after three hours of squatting on a birth ball, her eyes closed and her hands squeezing her husband's, their daughter arrived. Baby Pumpkin, Isabelle Grace. It was 8:32 p.m. on Halloween.

"Her eyes were bright, open, huge, just looking at me," Allison remembers. "It was like: 'Hey, I'm here. You've been waiting for me.' "

They stayed that night at the birth center - Izzy nestled between them, alternately nursing and sleeping - then went home to a circus of visitors, scant sleep, and a few work-free weeks. Even when Marcus returned to work, and daily life felt like Groundhog Day - "the baby wakes up, you change her diaper, you play with her, she sleeps, you sleep, an ongoing cycle, all the time," Allison says - she felt buoyed by the memory of her strength and grit on the night of Izzy's birth.

Her husband marveled, too. Marcus had played rugby for six years; he'd endured knee injuries and minor surgery. "I thought I went through the battle. But to witness what she did during childbirth . . . I was in awe for weeks afterward."

It wasn't only his view of his wife that had changed; it was everything. Before, he focused restlessly on what the next day would hold. Now, Isabelle insists he keep a bigger arc in mind. "When I look at her, I see: This is our long-term goal, right here."

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.