On this day three years ago I walked from my office in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor up the street to Mercy Medical Center where my OB/GYN had an office. I had called them from Tanzania via Skype a few week’s earlier to make the appointment because I had a positive pregnancy test while I was there visiting Kakasii for a couple of months (thanks again, Lisa Bonds, for allowing me to work remotely).

I was nervous about the appointment. I was pregnant once before, just after we were married. When I went to that appointment the ultrasound showed no heartbeat.

This time when Dr. Hoffman started the exam my eyes were glued to the monitor. I knew to watch for a blinking little blip on the screen to indicate a heartbeat.

And there it was! A blinking light, a heartbeat! I dropped my head down onto the exam table with a sigh of relief. Dr. Hoffman continued to move the ultrasound wand across my abdomen for several more seconds, saying nothing.

Then she leaned down near me and whispered, “There are two in there.”

My head shot back up. “What? Are you serious?!”

And she proceeded to show me two little blinking lights on the monitor. First one, then the other. Then both of them together on the screen–to prove she wasn’t lying.

I was stunned. Speechless.

Then she looked at the monitor again and said, “Wait, let me check to make sure there aren’t three.”

Three?!

“Nope, just two.”

And exactly six months later those two little blinking lights on the ultrasound monitor were born.