From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge
After losing my fiancé [Keith Griffin, who was murdered in 1979] the way I did, I never thought love and marriage, much less having children, would happen to me. I met David [Linch, 49, an investment banker] after Keith died. We'd maintained a long-distance relationship over the years. Last April I said, "Let's do it." He said, "What?" I said, "Get married—this weekend." I always wanted a family. I was 47 when I got pregnant. I'd been trying for a couple of years and thought it would never happen.

Initially, I didn't know I was carrying twins. Then I went in for a routine ultrasound and there were two heartbeats. They were referred to as Baby A and Baby B. Early on I was told I had lost Baby B, that somehow I had miscarried. The doctors referred to this as the "disappearing twin phenomenon." Several weeks later, they found a second heartbeat; the twin was back. Soon after, a doctor told me my cervix was too short to carry twins full term. She said, "You will have to consider selective termination." I freaked out. I sat up in my paper gown and said, "No way! I'm not aborting one of the twins!" I was referred to a specialist and, sure enough, the cervix was perfect.

In August I was having horrible abdominal pains and trouble breathing. My feet were so swollen I could only wear flip-flops. On Nov. 4 David took me to Northside Hospital in Atlanta because I couldn't breathe. The doctor said, "You're dilated, and you've got pulmonary edema." My lungs had been filling up with water. Ninety minutes later the twins arrived [almost two months early] by C-section. Lucy was breech and weighed 2 lbs.; John David was 5 lbs. A week later I had to go back to the ER because I had blood clots in my lungs. Now, I'm on long-term blood thinners.

Before I had the babies, I never really let myself love 100 percent. Lucy and John David have changed all that. There's no way I can't love them 200 percent.