Two yolk sacs. Two strong heartbeats. History is repeating itself in a beautiful way for Candice Botha, a 29-year-old chemical engineer from Randburg.
She is one of five quintuplets conceived outside their mother's body in a laboratory in Sandton - one of only four sets born in SA to date.
The twins she is carrying were conceived in that same laboratory, will grow up in the house where she lived with her siblings, and - she hopes - will have the same delightful experience of being a multiple because "you're always with your best friend/s".
After one miscarriage and four years of struggling to fall pregnant, Botha's parents, Andrea and Leon, went to a fertility clinic in Sandton in 1988. It came down to two things: hope and mathematics.
"My mom had 15 eggs retrieved. Twelve were fertilised, and eight of those were good. Four were transferred into her body and four frozen."
Twelve days later, her mother felt sick. "At the clinic she was told: 'It's multiples. You have triplets!'" And for the entire pregnancy, that was what they thought.
The babies were due in late June 1989, but by early April their mother was in severe discomfort and she was prepped for surgery.
Once the operation began, a surprise appeared: there was a fourth baby - and that wasn't the end of it.
"As they were closing my mom up, they saw something wriggling inside her. That was my sister Kirsten. Baby No 5. We think if she didn't wriggle, they might have closed my mom up and both could have died. Weighing only 700g, they nicknamed her Chicken."
How had this happened? Four fertilised eggs had been inserted, and now there were quintuplets. "The doctors said either she had ovulated another egg on her own, or one had split."
After this came "a lot of heartache", said Botha. "Because we were so premature, they didn't know how much oxygen to give us. And 11 days after our births, my brother Brendan passed away after his lungs collapsed too many times. My other brother and myself, given too much oxygen, were blinded in the right eye. My other brother is fully blind."
Only little "Chicken" was fully sighted.
Botha spent three months in intensive care and was the first sibling to go home. "After me, everyone trickled home at different times."
With her own twins on the way, Botha reflects on the delight of being a multiple.
"We grew up so close to one another. And still are. It is like having your best friends with you all the time. My blind brother attended a boarding school but was just as close to all of us."
Since then, Botha's life has been marked by the milestones of her own determination.
In 2014, she began working as an engineer at Sasol. Soon after that, she met Leon on Tinder. His surname? Botha.
They were engaged within six months and tied the knot in April last year. "We wanted kids quite soon," said Botha.
Concerned about her ovulation cycle, and because of her mother's medical history, they headed straight for the fertility clinic. Fifteen eggs were harvested, 10 were fertilised and seven made it to day five in the petri dish. "At that stage, they froze all seven embryos," she said.
In June, two embryos were thawed and inserted in her body, but it was only at the second attempt that success was achieved. During a scan late in July, said Botha, "there they were - two yolk sacs, two very strong heartbeats". A subsequent scan showed the babies "happy and bouncing and one even sucking its thumb".
On Tuesday, she and Leon "graduated" from the fertility clinic and are now with a regular obstetrician. The babies are due around end-February, and the gender reveal has been set for October 7.
"My mom is a bit nervous. She hasn't been back to the hospital for 29 years since our birth. My siblings are so excited. My sister burst into tears," said Botha.
The quintuplets' father died in 2012. Botha's mother, Andrea Langer, who has remarried, said this week: "I was absolutely thrilled when Candice told me she was pregnant. And even more delighted when I heard it was twins.
"I know how hard it is raising multiples but I have confidence in her. I am going to teach my grandkids all the things moms normally don't have time for."..