When Monica Raab and her husband, Bill DeJesus were unable to get pregnant, they decided to see an infertility specialist. Thanks to some familial connections — which Raab said were “fated” — they ended up at Penn Fertility Care, seeing Clarisa Gracia, MD, chief of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.
Raab underwent several tests to determine a cause for the infertility and then a round of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Seven eggs were harvested, but only three were mature. Two of the eggs fertilized and were transferred into her uterus, but she lost hope. “I thought it was a done deal — I even told everyone at work that it [the IVF] didn’t work.” But Gracia told her, “There’s still hope — you never know.”
And as it turned out, Gracia was right. Two weeks after transferring the embryos, Raab’s at-home pregnancy test was positive … as were the other three she rushed out to buy. Once they found out she was having a boy, the couple pondered what to name him. Her sister, who was also pregnant, planned to name her son Rhoads, for their mini getaway in Rhode Island after their wedding. “So we jokingly said we’d name ours Penn,” Raab said.
But, as her due date approached, they started to look at the name more seriously. And in the end, Penn DeJesus was born in October 2018. “The name meant a lot to us,” Raab said. “If I didn’t have such a good team of doctors behind me, I wouldn’t have Penn. Some I never met but they all played a role in the most important time of my life.”