Not the Same Old Song and Dance: Ironman, Opera and Obstetrics

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Fredrick Redd and Allegra Cummings like telling the story of how their lives have unfolded since their April 21, 2007, wedding in East Hampton, N.Y., announced in The New York Times the following day. But getting the couple in the same room to tell it can be tricky.

On a recent Saturday morning, for instance, Mr. Redd, 56, was at home in the two-bedroom condominium he and Dr. Cummings, an obstetrician and gynecologist, bought in Harlem in 2008 and share with their 9-year-old daughter, Autumn, and Dr. Cummings’s mother, Lynne Barry Cummings.

Dr. Cummings, 45, was at work at Mount Sinai, where she practices medicine and is an assistant professor of reproductive science.

“I’m in the barrel today, which is what we call it when it’s my turn to come to work and take care of patients,” Dr. Cummings said during a break, via conference call. Mr. Redd had planned the day around what he called “daddy-daughter time.” But not the entire day. He also had some singing and some Ironman training to do.

Rivaling a doctor who delivers babies for long and unpredictable work hours is difficult, but not for Mr. Redd. In addition to running Assai Management Consulting, a company he started in 2013 after leaving his job as director of the project management office at the Port Authority, he is a professional opera singer, currently preparing to play the lead baritone in Puccini’s “Turandot” at New Jersey’s Bergen Performing Arts Center. In his spare time, he is preparing for his second Ironman triathlon.

The couple’s joint refusal to hit the brakes on their careers or their hobbies — Dr. Cummings finds a few hours each week to dance Masala Bhangra with the Alvin Ailey Extension program, and has performed with the company — has been by design.

“Fred is happiest when everything’s going 80 miles per hour,” Dr. Cummings said. “And if I were doing just one thing instead of several, I would lose interest.”

Mr. Redd said productiveness accounts at least partly for their compatibility. “I think we’re stretching ourselves in terms of what we do with our lives because it’s who we are, and because it provides an example for our daughter,” he said. “That’s what life is all about, constantly growing and challenging yourself.”

Some challenges Dr. Cummings and Mr. Redd have confronted since their wedding have not been of their own choosing. When Autumn was born in June 2008, Dr. Cummings spent more than a month in the hospital.

“I had an infection related to the delivery that got me very ill,” she said. “It was a tough year, and you never expect something like that early on in your marriage. We had kind of a bumpy start.” Those bumps put an end to what she had long envisioned as a two-child household. “After that, we said, ‘Let’s be thankful for what we’ve got.’”

Mr. Redd’s 2011 diabetes diagnosis also came as a surprise, though it prompted him to lose 55 pounds and set him on his course to becoming an Ironman competitor. Which was another adjustment for the family.

“Anytime anyone you love tells you, ‘O.K., I’m going to go exercise for 14 hours, you’ve got to be a little wary,’” Dr. Cummings said. But Dr. Cummings and Autumn were there to watch Mr. Redd cross the Ironman finish line last year in Cozumel, Mexico, coming in 35th place in his age group.

Mr. Redd’s strict diet and exercise regimen has allowed him to quit taking diabetes medications. The family’s health issues haven’t ended there, though.

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When Autumn was born and Dr. Cummings was still in the hospital, Mr. Redd’s mother, Hilda Redd, of Friendswood, Tex., spent months in New York. “Both grandmas helped us out a lot,” Dr. Cummings said. But both grandmothers have since fallen ill, and Dr. Cummings and Mr. Redd are the primary caretakers in their families (their fathers — Mr. Redd’s in Texas and Dr. Cummings’s in Colorado — are healthy).

Mr. Redd travels to Texas to help his mother as frequently as possible. And Lynne Barry Cummings has been living with the couple since Superstorm Sandy displaced her from her home in Montauk, N.Y. Ms. Cummings was at first able to help with child care, picking up Autumn from school and babysitting so the couple could plan date nights. Last year she had a health setback.

“I have to give my husband very big props for living with his mother-in-law since 2013,” Dr. Cummings said.

On the other hand, both Dr. Cummings and Mr. Redd give Ms. Cummings props for indirectly bringing them together. Ms. Cummings is a former opera singer; Dr. Cummings’s familiarity with the music drew her to Mr. Redd. One of their first dates, in 2005, was when Mr. Redd, a baritone, was playing the lead in Verdi’s “Giovanni D’Arco” at Carnegie Hall.

“I’m what I call a professional music fan,” Dr. Cummings said. “That was part of the connection for me.”

Part of the connection for Mr. Redd is his wife’s scientific side. He is a trained engineer; Assai specializes in consulting transportation, technology, energy and construction businesses. “I’m proud of Allegra for being a doctor, but also for her varied interests, and that she’s so much bigger than her job,” he said.

Still, both recognize the importance of their jobs, and neither begrudges the other for taking work seriously. When Dr. Cummings was called to the operating room during the recent conference call, Mr. Redd hurried her off the phone, offering to finish answering questions for both of them.

“I’ll call you later, Fred,” Dr. Cummings said, as the hospital P.A. system paged her in the background. “I love you.”