Part 1: "Two Heartbeats!"

It was October 27, 2004, a day I will never forget.

The doctor ran the sonogram wand over Linda's belly. We stared at the shifting image on the screen, trying to make sense out of the chaos.

Both of us were expecting the worst. The night before, Linda had started spotting. We figured that it would be a replay of the previous February, when we were in the same doctor's office, the same sonogram room, and the doctor was unable to find our eight-week-old baby's heartbeat.

Before doing the sonogram, the doctor talked to us about the symptoms Linda was having, and about the embryo transfer procedure we'd had done. It was torture for us to sit in that office, waiting, waiting to get to the sonogram and to have all of our fears confirmed.

Suddenly I saw a small rhythmic blip on the screen, moving, pulsing.

"There's a heartbeat," the doctor said. I grabbed Linda's hand.

She moved the wand again. I saw another pulse. "Two Heartbeats!" the doctor said, and Linda and I squeezed each other's hands, hard. Tears flowed down her face.

A multitude of emotions washed over me. Happiness, of course, and fear. Mostly I felt, well, bittersweet might be the best word to describe it. Or maybe disbelief. At that point, I didn't believe we'd make it through and have twins. It took us most of a year to recover from February's heartbreak. If we were doomed to failure again, how would Linda take it? How would I?

After the sonogram, the doctor explained away the spotting as not too serious and set us up for another appointment. Linda and I separated with a kiss and both went back to work.

As I drove up the Beltway, I thought about how funny it would be if we did have twins. For so long, I believed that I didn't want children at all. Then as time passed, I realized that maybe I did want to have a child, but a child, definitely just one. When I got to work, I joked with my friend Mary about it: "There must be a God," I told her, "'cause he's out to get me!"

I could talk about the twins at work, but it was definitely too early to tell the family. I still didn't believe it, and I had every reason to doubt. We'd been trying to have a child for years, with only failure to show for it. Though, ironically, the baby we lost in February was conceived the old-fashioned way, we'd been seeing fertility specialists and been tested over and over. We did IUI twice, and had just done our second embryo transfer. (If you don't know what these procedures are, pray that you never have to find out.)

Poor Linda had to get three shots a day for months at a time. She gave herself two of them, but one, an incredibly dense oil-based concoction had to be given by me, if you can believe it.

It was heartbreaking to do so much and have no success at all.

Though time seemed to stand still, it wasn't really that long until the next sonogram and on November 18th, there were still two heartbeats. More tears from Linda, more emotions for me. That's when I really started to believe that we'd be having a baby. Make that: babies!

I was going to be a father! After all the time, trouble and pain we'd gone through, we were going to be parents!

Of course, our troubles weren't over yet.