The Parent Trip: Angelique Linares of Society Hill

The dates were so bad, so epically awful, that Angie started blogging about them: The man whose ex-wife showed up in the middle of their restaurant dinner and threatened to kill herself. The guy who suggested they meet in front of a bar, then confessed that he didn't drink and was strapped for cash.

There were men who wanted to get married in a hot minute, men who bore no resemblance to their online profile pictures, men who sweated profusely even while sitting still.

It was enough to make Angie, then a naval architect in Washington, rethink her longtime life plan: the "forever" guy, the baby, the white picket fence. She loved her work, doing structural assessments of Navy vessels, making site visits to Japan; Guam; Seattle; Groton, Conn.; and Norfolk, Va.

"I was thinking, 'Why am I going to invest all this time in dating, if this is the outcome?' I'd rather continue to advance in my career and continue traveling. I realized that maybe my ideal was going to change, and I was 100 percent OK with that."

In 2014, Angie relocated to Philadelphia for a similar job based at the Navy Yard. She lived with a roommate in the Art Museum area - that is, when she wasn't on the road. And she was shocked last summer when, after preoperative tests for a minor eye surgery, a nurse waltzed up with a big smile and one word: "Congratulations!"

It took three test sticks, each with a decisively scarlet line, to convince Angie that she was pregnant. She had been seeing someone - a man she'd met at work this time, not through Match.com - for just four months. A few years earlier, after being treated for ovarian cysts, a gynecologist had told her she was unlikely to become pregnant without fertility treatments.

Angie never considered terminating the pregnancy. "For me, this was a miracle baby. I was so deeply, hiddenly happy. I'd been told this would never happen."

She also knew she'd be managing this miracle alone. The man she was dating "was barely ready to be a boyfriend, let alone like this. He said he wanted to be involved, but then never followed up," Angie says.

Single parenthood was a bit daunting - could she provide all the emotional and financial ballast a kid would need? - but Angie had a strong track record of endurance: When she was unemployed after graduate school and spent her last $30 in gas money to go to a career fair in Rhode Island. When she was in Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. When she suffered detached retinas and went blind in one eye, then had surgery to restore her sight.

"I've tackled so much in life. I figured this was another challenge. I'd rather do it alone than have someone who's going to put in just 5 percent."

Angie's parents and her sister were thrilled to hear that a first grandchild was on the way. And her pregnancy was a breeze: She ran 5K and 10K races, moved to her own place in Society Hill, and outfitted it with a crib and changing table.

As her pregnancy progressed, the contours of Angie's life shifted. "I'm used to living alone. It was hard for me to take a step back and realize I could do only one thing at a time."

She pored over books on natural birth, envisioning a medication-free delivery and "that lovey-oxytocin feeling of euphoria when the baby comes out." Her sister, in the Peace Corps in Belize, booked a ticket from April 2 - the baby's due date - to the 11th, and Angie's parents prepared to come up from Orlando.

Angie knew the baby was a girl. "I was 100 percent ready for her to come out." But Keira Noelle had different ideas; six days after her due date, she was still resolutely tucked inside, and Angie headed to Hahnemann University Hospital for an induction.

Pitocin made her contractions fierce and relentless - "I had 45 seconds in between them" - and after an epidural and some pushing, it was clear that the baby's head was stuck in Angie's pelvis.

"Tears were coming down my face, but I was thinking about her safety first. I didn't allow myself to have emotions. I thought, 'This is what needs to happen.' " Angie's sister was able to be in the operating room with her, and though there were moments Angie would prefer to forget - hearing someone say, "Can you please move her bladder a little bit?" - she will always remember her first brief glimpse of the baby.

"She looked at me when she heard my voice. I said, 'Is that her?' I said, 'Oh, my God,' then faded to black from all the medication." When she awoke, the sun was rising, and her daughter was there. "I was so elated. I can't even describe the feeling - happiness like I've never felt."

Angie had worked as a camp counselor and taught kids in an after-school program, but she'd never cared for an infant. "A little part of me was afraid to touch her." Her mother stayed for a week, and for days, Angie moved on autopilot: Change the diaper. Put clothes on her. Now breast-feed. Keira had a hard time latching; Angie's nipples grew raw and scabbed. She tried to follow everyone's counsel to sleep when the baby slept.

Now, the two have found their groove: Angie paces, with Keira in a front-pack, to calm her. She dances salsa to coax a smile. She sings her way through routines: "Now you're going to have a diaper change," she'll croon. Or "Stop cry-ing . . . thank you-u!"

"I don't know what the future holds," she says. "I can go completely nuts thinking about all of that. I'm taking it as I go, day by day. When she looks up at me, it's awesome. That feeling: I made that."

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