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.

Three heartbeats, each impossibly quick, each belonging to a child I had not dared to imagine existed.

I should have been happy without complication.

Instead, I cried and asked how I could possibly manage three babies on my own.

Dr.

Price handed me a tissue and explained carefully that a multiple pregnancy required monitoring, assistance, and a plan.

She did not pretend it would be simple.