At 20 Weeks Pregnant, An Ultrasound Revealed Something Unthinkable. What Happened Next Is My Deepest Regret.

I was laying in bed watching reruns of “The Office” when my water broke.

As Michael Scott was burning his foot on a George Foreman grill, I felt what can only be described as a small “pop” in my lower abdomen. Concerned and confused, I stood up, took two steps towards the bathroom in our tiny one-bedroom Seattle apartment and felt a rush of amniotic fluid soak through my sweatpants, pooling beneath my feet on our hardwood floor.

“This is it! Oh my God, this is it!” my then-boyfriend said, visibly unable to contain his excitement as he pee-danced his way toward the front door to grab our carefully packed go-bags.

“Yeah, let me take a shower first,” I responded flatly, paralyzed by excitement, fear and a debilitating wave of grief.

This *is* it , I thought, the reality of my situation assaulting the recesses of my brain like a rogue pinball. It’s time to say hello… and goodbye.

A little over nine months earlier, at a Planned Parenthood tucked away in a nondescript building in South Seattle, an overly kind ultrasound technician calmly informed me that I wasn’t just pregnant — I was pregnant with twins. After accidentally blurting out a string of expletives and requesting the technician count the embryos again … and again … and again… I left the exam room armed with half-a-dozen fuzzy black-and-white pictures of two alien-looking sacs and a full-blown smile.

I was going to be a mom. My boyfriend was going to be a dad. We were going to be parents, twice over.

We purchased two of everything — onesies, sleep sacks and soft toys no newborn has the physical capacity to use but which were necessary nonetheless.

Carelessly, I allowed my mind to craft a picture of what our future would look like as a family of four: my