What I did not know when I first began making plans to leave was that I was already expecting a baby. And what I discovered at my first appointment changed those plans more profoundly than I could have imagined.
The Story Continues After Part 2
PART 3: Three Heartbeats
The doctor turned her monitor slightly so I could see the image without lifting my head.
She was a gentle woman named Dr.
Alana Price, with reading glasses on a chain and a habit of giving patients a moment before explaining news that would rearrange their lives.
“There’s one,” she said, pointing to a faint flicker.
“And there is another.”
I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I thought I had misunderstood.
“Twins?”
She moved the wand.
Her face changed into an expression of astonished pleasure.
“Actually, Emily, there are three.”
I stared at the monitor until its unfamiliar shadows became the most important things I had ever seen.
