This time, certain of their parenting choices

THE PARENTS: Kelly Whelan, 39, and Adam Wurster, 38, of Sewell

THE KIDS: Kaeley Reese, 22; Jack Adam, born April 10, 2021

A BIG-SISTER MOMENT: When one of their dogs needed emergency surgery, they left Jack with Kaeley, who called them, distraught: The baby was crying, she couldn’t calm him, and she needed to work. “It’s given her a new perspective on having kids,” Kelly says.

It was “Hook” who brought them together.

That’s what everyone called the buddy — he’d lost his arm in a motorcycle accident — who invited Adam and Kelly to a party in Wildwood in 2010. They met, and started talking, and something made them both want to talk more.

“I just knew she was special,” Adam says, “and I really cared about her. Things got serious pretty quick.”

Kelly was up-front from the start: She had a 12-year-old daughter, Kaeley, born when Kelly was a 17-year-old senior at Little Flower High School. Kelly was four or five months along before she realized — and while the pregnancy stunned her parents, they and other family members rallied to support her.

Kaeley was born over Christmas break; Kelly returned to school, graduated on time, then attended Rosemont College on a full-tuition scholarship, earning a degree in biology. Her parents, her grandmother, and Kaeley’s father’s family helped with childcare.

Kelly and her boyfriend remained a couple for about eight years; when that relationship dissolved, she felt wary of dating, vigilant about protecting her daughter.

“When you’re young, it’s really difficult to be a single parent,” she says. “It defines who you are. I didn’t date until my late 20s. I didn’t want to have people coming in and out of Kaeley’s life.”

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But Adam was different — unfazed that she had a child, and selfless, a quality Kelly glimpsed on an early date when she tasted her Italian hoagie, hated it, then watched as Adam quickly swapped her meal for his chicken parmesan sandwich. “That was one of the defining moments in our relationship.”

Another came when they moved into the house Kelly bought in 2013: one bathroom, three people, and, soon, a trio of large, hairy dogs. “I wanted my child to see a relationship that was positive,” Kelly says. “I wanted to be the best version of me that I could be.” Sometimes that meant acting as a buffer between Adam and Kaeley as they grew accustomed to this new configuration of family.

She wasn’t planning on another child. “Motherhood was hard. I enjoyed my career and my freedom. Adam said he would like to have children, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. It’s something neither of us really expected to happen.”

But nature had other plans. Kelly became pregnant — a complete surprise — in November 2019, then miscarried two months later. “As unfortunate as that was, it shifted my perspective on having kids,” she says. “I became obsessed with having a baby.”

Last summer, she found herself squinting at one more in a series of pregnancy tests. “I think it’s positive,” she told Adam. He saved the stick.

“I definitely wanted to have a baby,” he says. “Watching them grow up, seeing them do things I did — going fishing, riding dirt bikes — trying to be a good dad like I had.”

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For Kelly, the pregnancy was both a déjà vu and a strange, new experience. Her body was 21 years older. Her job, running a research lab at Temple University, was in full swing. She’d been diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in 2018 and would need to take blood thinners daily for the next nine months.

“At 17, people were shocked that I was pregnant. This time, people were so happy about it. This time, I gained much less weight. I carried better. Hormonally, I’m very balanced when I’m pregnant, and very happy.”

She figured the delivery would be an echo of her first: labor that began on her due date, a healthy baby born less than three hours after arriving at the hospital.

This time, Kelly opted for an induction at 39 weeks. They got to Jefferson Washington Township Hospital at 7 p.m., her water broke at 10 … and then the baby’s heart rate began slowing with each contraction. “They had to continually put me on and take me off the medicine [to induce contractions],” she says.

By the time Jack emerged, there were 10 medical personnel in the room. “It was all hands on deck. The doctor told us after Jack was born that we were 30 minutes away from a C-section. The first thing Adam and I said was, ‘Is he OK?’ ”

Adam recalls the cluster of doctors, the tense energy, and the blood. “He wasn’t the cutest thing when he came out. His head was shaped like a football. They didn’t know if something was wrong with him.”

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But the baby was fine. Thanks to COVID-19 restrictions, the three were able to bond in the hospital, without visitors. “It was bittersweet,” Kelly says. “I was looking forward to my family meeting him, but I was grateful to have that time.”

Two decades later, Kelly’s more certain of her parenting choices, including the decision not to breastfeed. “When you’re young, especially when you are a teenager, you feel that everything you do is judged. That might be true now, but I just don’t care. I have the confidence that I will make the right choice for my baby.”

What’s harder, now, is juggling work and parenthood. Though Adam is home full-time, Kelly feels a tug of guilt when she can’t attend a pediatrician appointment; she feels equally culpable when she must interrupt work in order to be a mom.

During a recent appointment that Kelly joined via FaceTime, when a nurse practitioner diagnosed Jack with thrush, “I felt, at that moment, like I was the worst mother in the world, and I was failing at work. I have tried to maintain some better boundaries at work and have realized it’s OK if I can’t go to every doctor appointment. One of his parents will be there.”

Meanwhile, Adam’s days are not what he ever envisioned — hours of watching Aladdin and The Lion King, having “tummy time,” walking the dogs. “I never thought this would be my life. But it’s great.”