The Parent Trip: Valene and Christopher McMorrow of Pottstown

THE PARENTS: Valene McMorrow, 32, and Christopher McMorrow, 32, of Pottstown
THE CHILD: Bianca Presley, born December 10, 2015
HOW THEY CHOSE HER MIDDLE NAME: Not after Elvis. They just liked the sound.

Before the sleep-starved nights, before the induction at 39 weeks and the full day of labor, before the conception that took longer than expected, even before the winter wedding with the shivery outdoor photo shoot, Val and Christopher had already gone the distance together.

In 2010, they ran the Labor Pain, a 12-hour endurance race on uneven Reading trails - an up-and-down circuit that echoed the contours of their relationship. By that point, they'd known each other for a decade; they were middle school pals who lost contact during college, then reconnected - both in Philly bars and on the marathon training trail - after graduation.

At 12, Val recalls, Christopher was a bespectacled, independent kid who helped her with math homework. She wore glasses then, too, and tempered her usual gregariousness when Christopher was around. "I feel like we knew and liked each other in our worst possible years," she says. "It only got better from there."

They were living together, in the Pottstown house Christopher bought when he was 22, when they returned one night from a Christmas party. Christopher had thought about proposing earlier, but Val was grumpy and he decided to wait. "She was getting ready for bed, and I thought, 'Now seems like a good time.' "

Val turned from her closet to find Christopher kneeling on the bedroom floor, proffering a small box. They were married a little more than a year later.

The couple had already talked about children; Christopher was certain he wanted to be a parent, but Val wavered. Maybe their careers - he's a financial planner, and she did clinical research for a pharmaceutical company - and their beloved pit bull would be enough to fill their lives.

"Everything about parenthood is scary," Val says. "You're giving up so much of yourself and your own life. I was scared: Could I work? Would I still enjoy life? Would I always be tired?" But Christopher's certainty, and the passage of time, altered her outlook. "I thought: If we're older and we have no one except ourselves, how lonely a life would that be?"

One month, she'd tell Christopher she felt ready to try. Then she'd backpedal: "Actually, no, I'm not." Finally, about two years into their marriage, she said, "Let's just take the plunge and do it." A month after they'd spent a long weekend in the Dominican Republic, Val left Christopher a positive pregnancy test and a note: "Could it be Braden or Declan?" He came downstairs, saw the unexpected gift on the counter, and broke into a huge grin.

Val was determined to have a natural birth and to stay fit and healthy in preparation - despite the fact that, for the first 15 weeks, all she could stomach was Coke and cereal. Still, she practiced yoga, did interval training, and ran until her 35th week.

Christopher comes from a long line of men whose children are boy-boy-girl; he assumed he would follow suit. But a few weeks before their second-trimester ultrasound, Val said, "I feel a very feminine vibe."

Learning the baby's sex - it was, indeed, a girl - was a game-changer for Christopher. His mind vaulted ahead 15 years: "She'll start dating, and how am I going to deal with that?" He repainted the neutral walls of the baby's room with the soft greenish-blue Val chose. And both agreed, after glimpsing the sonogram image, that their daughter was not "Declan," a name they'd picked out even before conceiving. "Bianca," from a movie Val had seen years earlier, seemed a better fit.

Val crammed as though preparing for a final exam: She read books about labor and delivery, listened to podcasts on the subject, met with a doula, and watched YouTube videos of women giving birth. "I wanted to see how people looked, how they felt, how they dealt with the pain."

Christopher, meantime, kept heading for the diaper aisle each time he entered Target. At home, he provided steady reassurance: "It's going to be fine."

When Val's blood pressure began to climb, their midwife advised her to go to the hospital. That frightened Val - "I was trying to avoid an induction at all cost" - but she was able to have the natural birth she envisioned, thanks to a dash of Pitocin and 12 hours of full-on contractions. Christopher captured it all on video.

"It was crazy. A true miracle," he recalls. "There's part of you, in a human being. Very surreal."

Val remembers the midwife urging her to reach down and pull the baby toward her. "The look on my face in the pictures is complete and utter shock," she says. "I did cry. But I was so happy. It was this oxytocin high that you can't explain."

And then they were three. "I remember when Chris and I were finally alone, saying: What are we going to do with her now?" What they did was stop for take-out pad thai on the way home from the hospital; they'd barely eaten in two days. Then all three fell into an exhausted sleep in the family bed.

Those first weeks, with Christopher off work, the holidays approaching, and the December weather unusually mild, was a sweet interlude - notwithstanding the nights when neither of them could figure out how to soothe Bianca's whimpering. "It was just the three of us. We tried to stagger visitors so we wouldn't get overwhelmed. Lots of baby snuggles, lots of sleeping, lots of pictures," Val recalls.

Some moments don't need documentation; they're indelible. The first time Bianca grabbed Christopher's finger and tracked him with her eyes. The first time she looked up at Val and laughed after nursing. Or the instant after she was born, when both parents felt past and future pleat together: There was their daughter, whose tiny fingers reminded Val of her father's and grandfather's hands. Their daughter, Christopher thought, who would carry a part of them into days beyond their glimpse.

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.