The Parent Trip: Dana Damoretcki and Chris Damoretcki, of Landenberg

THE PARENTS: Dana Damoretcki, 33, and Chris Damoretcki, 32, of Landenberg
THE KIDS: Jay Tyler, 3; Ty Malvern, born January 2, 2016
THE MOMENT DANA KNEW CHRIS WAS THE ONE: When they were dating, she fell asleep early one night; in the morning, she found that he'd ironed her work clothes.

If Dana had to advise her younger sister, she'd certainly counsel, "Don't do what I did" - that is, buy a condo, at the naive age of 23, with a man she'd been dating for just over a year.

Except that in Dana's case, it was the threshold to the rest of her life.

Even pre-romance, she and Chris had lived together in a coed fraternity house at SUNY Binghamton: nine male engineering nerds and Dana. The day she moved in, Chris swept past her, his arms loaded with cleaning supplies, muttering, "This bathroom is disgusting!"

The two became friends: a shared Monday-evening class, then a flu-stricken weekend when they spent hours watching old game shows. "Then it was dinner, just the two of us, and movies, just the two of us, and we realized: This is dating," Dana says.

They bought the condo, in Hamilton, N.J., after both had graduated. By then, marriage seemed like a given. "I'd always told Chris, 'I don't need a ring. I don't need a proposal,' " Dana says, but that didn't sway him from proposing during a family vacation on Long Beach Island; when the two returned from their sunset-by-the-water moment, 25 of Dana's relatives were waiting at the beach house.

"Wouldn't it be funny if we go in and I tell them I said no?" Dana teased. "Uh, no," Chris responded.

They were married in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., halfway between their hometowns. Dana, a foodie who chose the venue for its exceptional catering, didn't eat a bite until the two repaired to their hotel room; the caterer had brought a platter with samples of every appetizer and entrée. Chris remembers the surge of spontaneity when 15 of his male friends clambered on stage to sing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'."

They wanted children, but not until they'd finished their master's degrees in software engineering (Chris) and business (Dana). The week Chris graduated, Dana broke the good news with the gift of a Penn State baby bib. They'd been trying for just two months.

The pregnancy was similarly easy - no heartburn, no morning sickness - except for severe sciatic pain that turned out, after delivery, to require three back surgeries and the removal of a benign tumor.

But Dana powered through, doing Pilates until two weeks before her due date and devouring popular and scientific literature, including one study showing that women who ate dates in their third trimesters had significantly shorter labors. "I figured: Dates, how bad can that be?" Dana says.

And perhaps it worked; she was already three centimeters dilated at her final midwife appointment, and her contractions began that night. Three minutes, 18 seconds apart, then two minutes, 59 seconds. To precision-minded engineers, that pattern didn't seem regular; to their midwife, it was a signal to head immediately for Einstein Medical Center Montgomery.

"They didn't have a room for me," Dana recalls, "so for the most part, I labored in an ultrasound room. My water broke at the hospital, on Chris' feet." But labor was less punishing than the sciatic pain she'd lived with for months, and, besides, the contractions felt purposeful.

When Jay emerged, the nurse made two observations that turned out to be prescient: "This baby soothes very easily," she said, also noting that he'd nearly rolled himself off the scale. "He hasn't cried more than 45 seconds in his entire life," Dana says, "and he's very active. That's still true."

Jay was just past 2 when Dana woke up one morning with a sharp pain in her leg: sciatica again. This time around, she had more typical pregnancy symptoms - nausea, heartburn - along with the puzzle of explaining conception and birth to an analytical toddler who was already grasping the concept of gravity.

"He had a whole lot of questions, including 'How would the baby get out?' He determined it must be through the belly button. Very logical," Dana says.

Jay's birthday is Jan. 10, and Dana was due on the 11th, so she devised what she thought was a fail-safe plan: They'd celebrate Jay's third birthday with a big party - 30 friends and relatives, many coming from New York - a week early. But the night before the bash, their house already full of family, Chris said, "You look different. I think you're going to have this baby."

Dana woke him at 4 a.m., after the second contraction. "Seriously?" he said, followed swiftly by, "Get in the car." Before they left, Chris tapped on the guest room door and woke his sister. "Dana's in labor. We're leaving."

Ty was born 45 minutes after they arrived at the hospital. Back home, the show went on - a construction-theme party complete with a cake fashioned by Chris' stepmother, a confection of frosted tiers with toy trucks and even a tiny Port-a-Potty to complete the scene.

They worried that their older son might be jealous of his new brother. But from the moment they brought Ty home, Jay just wanted to hug the baby. Ty, on the other hand, was not so sanguine: He screamed, swung his tiny fist at a nurse when she tried to bathe him, and generally "let his opinion be known," Dana says.

Before Ty was born, someone told the couple, "One kid is not enough, and two is way too many." Now, they understand. "With two, your attention is split," Chris says. "It took some adjustment to get to a point where we click as a unit again."

But those clicks do happen: When Ty fusses and only Jay can calm him, nuzzling close and pretend-reading a book out loud. Or on a recent soft spring day, when Dana stood in the driveway in a puddle of sunshine, holding the baby while Chris and Jay switchbacked across the lawn - one with an actual mower, one with a miniature toy version. "This," she thought, "is as good as it gets."