I am well-rehearsed by now. Easily digestible, ten-second soundbites: Oh yes indeed… <chuckle> it’s more than we bargained for. But once they get here, I'm sure we won’t be able to imagine anything different. <smile>

I should have a keypad installed on my belly: PRESS ONE TO DIFFUSE SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS. PRESS TWO TO BASK IN GESTATIONAL GLOW. At which point appropriate blurbs will plop cheerfully from my mouth, satisfying one and all.

I don’t even think about what I say anymore. I just pick one at random and out it bubbles, giving young couples a chance to snap dropped jaws back into place (you don’t think she registered our vicarious terror, did she? Did I look like as much of a bullet-dodger as I felt?) and making book clubs and quilting bees swoon.

I’ve reverted to a state of second-wind denial.

But then Evan ties himself into knots over some horrific injustice (inconveniently crumbly cheese, for instance), flailing and kicking, and before I know it I’m two slammed doors away, hyperventilating. Justin comes in and it pours out: I didn’t want three kids. I don’t want three kids. I can’t do this. I can’t add two infants to THIS. This can’t be my life. I didn’t want three. I never wanted three.

To feel this way — I only wanted one, and even then, I wanted it to be a girl — while they squirm and kick under my skin… it’s traitorous. It makes me unmotherly. They pick up these currents, I have no doubt. Emotional pheromones souring the ph balance of my womb.

I’m not asking for you to prop me up, tell me how well I’m going to cope. When it comes from you, even when it’s said with love and concern, it still comes from you, you with your peanut-gallery tickets. Don’t tell me everything’s going to be fine unless you’re offering to take my place.

Why couldn’t I have just become pregnant with one baby, like everyone else? Why? It would have been so much easier. That’s the truth of how I feel. It bubbles up past my defenses, past the poker-face I’ve adopted: intense, throat-swelling panic.

I leave tomorrow morning, just in time for the sky to clear. Vancouver's weather has had the same dampening effect as pregnancy — with the landscape sopping wet and the belly increasingly cumbersome, I've been relegated to office hallways, wholesome bedtimes and tall glasses of homo milk.

I got a glimpse of the mountains as I flew in, heart catching in my throat, and another as the clouds lifted just before dark tonight. The ground is a sponge, and every excursion is an umbrella-toting, puddle-hopping dash. I'm told these days have capped a two-week downpour. Even the locals are complaining, the radio glutted with talk of imminent mudslides and north shore evacuations.

When I was here last June, it was glorious. A five-day trip felt like two weeks, packed with reunions and dinners and adventures and I-never-want-to-forget-how-this-feels photo ops. This time was a head-down slosh through the rain, wincing at long walks from meeting to meeting in lovely dainty shoes, contemplating the potential sciatica I'm nursing more than the lifestyle we miss. This time, five days have felt more like two days… worthwhile and appreciated, but a relative blur of limitations and restraint.

You know the scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where Clark Griswald proudly emerges from the kitchen with the Christmas turkey? He places it on the table, bulbous and glistening, and presses the point of the knife into a breast to start the ritual of carving. The bird then implodes in a whoosh of overcooked steam, dehydrated to a crisp.

I am the turkey.

I cup it, hold it in, will it to stop stretching, to slow down. People glance sideways at me and say, "Oh look, maternal sweetness.. she's caressing her belly without realizing she's doing it… how sweet... quick, someone go exhume Norman Rockwell so that we can capture this…"

But they don't realize: I HAVE to hold it in. If I don't, it’s going to pop like a too-taut balloon and it's going to be, like, TOTALLY grody, and YOU will have to clean it up.

I have had the same conversation 1,276 times every day with every person I've met, from corporate VPs to café baristas:

• No, I haven't just eaten too much.
• July 26.
• Yes, quite a while still to go.
• Yes, only five months along.
• Because there's two.
• <insert jaw-drops and mouth-claps>
• <hush falls over room, small crowd gathers>
• Yes, I'm "going to have my hands full!"
• No, I didn't "plan it this way."
• Yes, twins are in my family but they have no bearing on me because mine are identical and identicals are a random egg-split and only fraternal twins can be genetic because that's multiple eggs released in one cycle and the trait of being an egg-rich woman comes from the women in your line and there aren't any twins on my maternal side.
• (OR No, twins don't run in my family.)
• No, I didn't take drugs.
• <insert incredulous stare, as though I MUST have done SOMETHING to make this happen other than playing too much ordinary hide-the-pickle)
• No, I don't know if I'm going to need a c-section.
• No, it's not really up to me.
• No, this isn't my first pregnancy.
• <insert incredulous stare #2>
• He'll be two-and-a-half when they arrive.
• Yes, we're having all-boys.
• <insert incredulous stare #3>
• Yes, I'm "going to have my hands full!"
• Yes, we'll have three under three. Thanks for reminding me.
• Yes, we'll need so very many diapers indeed. Thanks for reminding me.
• Thanks (for saying I look nice despite the... the... you know. <insert hand-gesture offered towards general trunk region>)

I can only imagine what life will be like when they get here — we'll be mobbed everywhere we go. We'll be The Beatles. I'll have to turn Goth and dye my hair black and get tattoos and scowl, look unsavoury enough to offset the world's curiosity.

It's already a spectacle. A chance for folk to revel in their own bullet-dodging prowess. It's got the entertainment value of the Point Pleasant Park Annual Polar Bear Swim, during which dozens of completely deranged gee-golly-shucksers storm into Halifax Harbour for a winter swim (ill-advised in mid-summer, let alone in mid-January). You watch with a smile on your face, bemused at someone else's bravado-slash-idiocy, tingling with cosy warmth in your fortuitously-chosen puffy down jacket.

That's the right word: bemused. Ha! Twins. Check it out. Yikes! Can you imagine how shrunken that guy's cubes must be right now? Ha!

A mixed blessing, I think, to have landed in Vancouver when it was on hiatus. Maybe she spared me, my mistress, by not answering the door when she had on her acne-treatment face mask and a grubby old houserobe. Maybe she decided I'd be best off not seeing her that way, in the interest of keeping the fantasy intact. She didn't answer my knocks, hoping I'd figure she was out on the town, swinging. And I walk away with a shrug, thinking I'll try again some other time.

Like maybe ooohh, in say, 2026. If The Rabble lets me.

Yesterday I ambled through the satellite universe during Evan’s nap and screeched to a halt on the Discovery Channel’s ‘Multiple Mayhem!’ (yes, the title of the feature included the exclamation mark).

Woohoo! I thought. Jackpot! Who doesn’t want a little mayhem?

And I sat in front of it for a moment, open-mouthed, contemplating lanugo and guck and stirruped legs and green masks and the all-round, miraculous freakitude of two babies entering the world.

Then I dosed myself with Rescue Remedy and Nestle Quik and changed the channel, unable to connect the dots of personal inevitability.

I am on this train and I cannot get off. But I wonder.. what will they look like? Will they be dark, like Justin? God, I still can’t believe it. It’s a They.

And then it settles on me, like it does sometimes out of the blue: hunger to smell them, see them tangled up in each other. I read a flash of another twin mama who peeks in on hers as they sleep head-to-feet, one sucking on the big toe of the other. And the warm, gushy pop! of anticipation bursts in my heart, for a flash, unencumbered by the burden of logistics. Which shocks the living vernix right out of me.

Last night I dreamed my babies were born too soon. They were from another planet. They had acorns for knees, and elastic legs, and didn’t cry. I stared at them and they stared at me with the giant, almond-shaped eyes widely reported by abductees. They knew everything there is to know. Then I woke up.

They kick, roll, stretch. I know when they’re sleeping. Oh yeah, I recall. There are people inside there. And suddenly I am the alien.

Me: Evan, what does daddy drive?
Evan: Fiya tuck!

Me: Evan, what do you hear?
Evan: I heah moosick.

Me: Evan, what would you like for breakfast?
Evan: PIZZA!

Me: Evan, daddy’s home!
Evan: I hide!

Me: Evan, what are these?
Evan: <grins sheepishly> Booo-beeees!

The string cheese says ‘simulated cheddar flavour’, a moment of grocery store desperation. They are individually wrapped, and the plastic makes a lovely ssscccchwick sound as it’s torn open. Tastes like salty rubbery nothingness. Likely contains petroleum by-product and xanthan gum: the cheese of the proletariat. And now of my son, who started out on cave-aged swiss gruyere. How the mighty fall when the mightier whine!

(The corn puffs say ‘organic’: ticket to redemption.)

This is what your brain looks like on hormones.

Justin looks across the room at a woman who is positively ripping at the seams with pregnancy. Our bellies magnetize together for a quick hello and sure enough, she is due in a week.

Later he says, “I’m so excited for you to be BIG! Like, REALLY big! Did you see that woman? How cool was that?”

Some men covet the perky, buxom-type. A tanned, lithe, yoga babe who can do the splits and wear bias-cut dresses. But for others, the ultimate trophy is a pregnant wife. Check it out, world! Look what I did! This is my baby-mama, right here! I done did progeny! Hear me roar!

Until recently, Justin kept a cap on his joy for my sake, knowing I was mourning our lack of daughters and overwhelmed with sheer quantity. Are you okay? He’d whisper solemnly, holding my hand.

Then he’d round the corner and squeeze the trigger and punch the air mouthing YEAH! WICKED! I ROCK! I AM THE SPERMINATOR!

...and compose himself just in time for me to come into sight, flipping back to concerned empathy.

But he can only hold it so long. And I have to say, it makes me smile. Only 17 weeks along, turning over in bed already requires a giant shoehorn and a ceiling pulley. And yet, he wants me bigger — because he truly, honestly adores the sight of it.

My boys, he says, cautiously at first. They’re going to be my boys, all piled into the canoe. We’re going to go hunting for frogs and slimy stuff and the shed's going to be full of smelly hockey gear.

I mean, I’d do the same with girls, I would… he adds. But… but they’ll be my boys. I’m so happy. Is that okay?

How could I resist? It’s contagious.

What do you call it when there’s two? Penii? Scrotii? Hmm.

There they were, plain as day on the now-familiar ultrasound screen. One boy.. two boys. Six ounces each, right on target.

My girl(s) went pouf! … but I know the bittersweetness will fade.

These boys will fill all voids, them with their sparkling big brother. They will be exactly the family we are destined to have, and after they arrive, we won’t be able to imagine anything different.

Someday, I’m going to be the one that says, Evaaaan, how come you never knee me in the groin anymore? Why? Why? Cuddle! Cuddle!

And he’ll roll his eyes and say Ma, you really need to get a grip. I’m taking the car. Seeya.

After almost two weeks of blocked sinuses, wracking coughs, blazing headaches and nonstop Pixar, we’re starting to emerge from the grip of the Norwalk virus. And/or Whooping Cough. Bubonic Norwhoop. Thanks to the constant hum of the New & Improved Mother (the big black box) we’re going to hell. And Lightning McQueen will take us there.

You look like a mime, said Justin last night. And yes, it’s true. My gorgeousness these days is positively blinding. Nose smeared with Evan’s Zincofax (pasty-white butt salve, for the uninitiated), hair in a near-dreadlocked state, eyes red and bleary. And it all pales in comparison to the neverending stream of curses and complaints.

I am pinched and bitchy. Everything sucks. Evan crawls all over me, tugs at me. I snap at him and shake him off, resenting him for needing me when all I want is to be alone. I feel so selfish. I want my body back, free of strains and twitches and hormones. I want my time back, my job, my clicky shoes, my autonomy. I want to have that glistening, polished feeling. I don’t want to buy unsweetened cheerios anymore, because they suck. I want salt on my eggs, and I don’t want to share them with anyone.

I’m bummed because Justin found some random, ancient Japanese formula that predicts the gender of your baby based on the month of conception and your age, and it says boys. It was right for Evan, he says. I knew it, it’s all boys. And something in me says Yep, you know it too. You're full of jiggers. Errr.. in the gestational sense. Yeah, yeah. All that’s important is that they’re healthy. But what about striped tights and pigtails? I’m supposed to have some, dammit.

We’re already over-quota. On the twins' birthday, I'm having my legs medically fused together. And for the rest of my life our house will be one big sausage party, all hockey games and fishing trips. I’ll be all alone in my femaleness, pining for idiotic things like prom dresses and lip gloss and tampons.

I want a Sadie. A Molly. A Riley. A Juniper. I lust for them, for their quirky leggings under flouncy skirts and long hair and teensy flared jeans and peasant tops. Shallow and irrational, yes. But my brain can’t accept that I might be deprived. I’m supposed to be the mother of a daughter. It’s not fair.

Guilt, guilt, all over. Guilt that I shake off my son, delicious and scruffy and sweet. He’s going to be all gone soon, replaced by someone who’s too cool and too grown-up to need his mother. These are precious days, I know. But I can’t seem to drum up the selflessness and energy and attention he needs. Not when I look and feel like Jabba the Hutt.

Guilt that I’m not myself. That I’m so ineffective, so lacking in patience, answering his whines with whines. Guilt that I have the nerve to complain about the prospect of a houseful of boys when there are people out there struggling to conceive, struggling with hospitalized kids and loss and grief. Guilt that Justin has to live with a piss-eyed, unshowered zombie. Guilt that we have family closeby who do everything they can to help, when plenty of young families are marooned.

I guess I’m just tapped. Aside from Croupgate 2006, this is the worst episode of plague we’ve suffered since Evan’s birth. You all know, right? How debilitating is it to be sick and to have to look after anyone other than yourself. How much worse it gets when you don’t sleep. And how much more self-pity you indulge on your blog, soon to be renamed www.poorkate.com, when you’re pregnant times two.

Following is the veritable gold mine of insight unearthed by googling ‘twins’:

• Being pregnant with twins is really, really complicated.
• Parenting twins is really, really difficult.
• Be prepared for sleepless nights.
• Stock up with lots of diapers.
• MARY-KATE & ASHLEY! TRIPLEXXX NEKKID!!!!

Pregnancy? Complicated? You mean my body is in as much peril as THE REST OF MY LIFE? Phew. Thank goodness you told me. Now I’ll really saw logs.

Twins? Difficult? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Every second. Of every minute. Of every hour and day since I found out.

Sleepless nights? Oh, really? Is that how it is for OTHER parents of twins? ‘Cuz it won’t be that way for us. See, my twins are going to be drugged and kept in padded, soundproof cubbyholes. Kibble will be dispensed as reward for good behaviour. Meanwhile, I will be on the dance floor boozing it up without a care in the world, chain-smoking and flashing my puddy tat to passerby. That is, when I’m not at the spa.

‘Stock up with lots of diapers’.. because as soon as you give birth, a fleet of Vorgon Constructor ships will unexpectedly arrive and demolish the rest of the planet to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.

Naturally, all these helpful brainwaves are preceded with, “I don’t mean to scare you, but…”. But what? Let me finish that for you: “…but planting giant, festering stress bombs on you — and then vanishing without providing a single useful piece of information — helps to make me feel that I’ve done better than you will. Besides, I get off on reminding you that hell is in your future, and in my distant past. Suckerrr!”

Coincidentally, “I don’t mean to scare you, but…” also precedes the pictures of tweedle-skin and tweedle-bones. I checked.

Sheesh. It’s almost enough to make me crave a little “Aww, shucks, ya’ll be FINE.” Almost.

Or at least a little: “Hey, we're with you. Here’s what worked for us: 1) For the first two months, put a sign on your door that says SLEEPING BABIES + DISHEVELLED MOTHER + EXPLODING ZEPPELIN BOOBS = NO VISITORS. PLEASE LEAVE CASSEROLE ON DOORSTEP, THEN KINDLY BUGGER OFF. THANK YOU! 2) Buy several of This Particular shirt/cape/muumuu/tent for public tandem nursing to escape unwelcome attention from roving National Geographic reporters, fetishists and rabid fundamentalist Christians alike. 3) If you’re worried about X, try asking your doctor about Y and Z. Beyond that, eat. Just eat. 4) No, you won’t need to mark on their foreheads with sharpie pens. You’ll always be able to tell them apart. 5) We didn’t relish in the prospect of twins either — but we love it. Love, love, love it. You’ll get there too.”

Those vets who have given us gems like the above, you know who you are. We bow to you. And to the faceless trolls and pontificators who populate most quasi-supportive websites — I've taken it upon myself to have you kindly bugger off by vowing to never google you again.

She winked. “Gorgeous!” she said. “Gorgeous babies. You’ll be just fine. You’ll be sick of us, but you’ll all be great.”

We met our obstetrician today, informative and thorough but full of smiling warmth. The kind of woman I trust already—not only because she’s competent, but because she’ll make the twins’ birthday full of joy no matter what we need to accomplish it.

I’ll be in for ultrasounds every two weeks, watching ‘A’ and ‘B’ like hawks to make sure they learn to share. They’re a rare form of twins, identical and sharing a single placenta. One buffet, at which it’s possible for one to out-muscle the other. So we measure and prod, peek in on them to track their growth, in awe.

 

(The above view shows them curled up, backs to us. Baby A is closest to the exit door, on top, head to the right. Baby B is next in line, head to the left. Below are full-body profiles of each, with Baby B in the left-hand picture and Baby A in the right.)

 

 

 

 

 

It’s incredible. A curled up spine looks like a stripped fish skeleton, for a flash. Then the head comes into view, and a perfect profile. A nose, a mouth sucking and swallowing, a hand brushing the face. Fingers, how tiny they must be.. magnified thanks to a large, high resolution screen. But perfectly complete, the very same hand that will reach out and grip onto the world someday, tug at my earrings and yank on my hair.

In the case of Evan, it's the very hand that yanks Daddy’s boxer shorts down around his knees during morning cuddles. “Off! Off!” he orders, and we laugh in confusion. “OFF!” he demands, and so Daddy obeys. He plops down at the end of the bed and one leg after the other, puts daddy’s boxers on himself. Tucked into the back of his diaper and brushing his ankles, he wears them all morning with great pride.

I look at Evan’s ultrasound, remembering how uncertain I was. I am not a mother. How can I be a mother? But here he is, hopping around the living room wearing his Big Boy Boxers, cheeks stuffed like a squirrel with blueberry waffles. Life without him is unimaginable. We’re so deeply in love, and would never wish a single moment away (uhhh… almost).

The same feeling will come, and we’ll say, Can you remember how scared we were? That’s only because we didn’t know them yet.

Sixty thousand: the approximate number of extra calories per day I’m expected to down from here on in, bringing a whole new meaning to ‘stepping up to the plate’. And zero: the approximate number of pants that still fit, buttons and flies popped open all the way at a measly eleven weeks. I’m not even out of the first trimester and am already too round for the realm of zippers.

But the weight that dogs me these days is not the literal and the inevitable. It’s the kind that presses on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Evan runs laps, unearths every breakable trinket, squeals with delight as the toilet paper unrolls in streams to the floor. For three hours straight he stomps and hops, lunges for the stairs, upstairs downstairs upstairs downstairs, thrusts dog toys into his mouth, yells TOOT! TOOT! as he discovers yet another door to slam, poops. Twice. He is good, but he is two. And he'll only get more determined from here.

I can’t sit down for more than a minute. I can’t eat. I can’t stand it. I am so tired. I've hardly said a word to anyone. My stomach aches. I trail after him, spotting and restraining and hand-holding and nagging, my lunch cold and untouched as everyone else sits with coffee and dessert.

It occurs to me then as my gut churns, how will this work?

This, plus two babies. It can’t be done. I can’t do it. How is it possible? Justin can’t stay at home forever. Even if he does, we need another set of hands at night. When will either of us sleep? And what about Evan? The numbers don’t balance. Someone will always be left out, and I’ll never get to eat or shower or be seen in public ever again. But I’m bound to be such a basketcase, my absence will count as a commendable community service.

Finally he unravels, late for his nap. I beg to leave for the sake of his sleep, hoping he’ll conk out in the car. As I say goodbye they all sit in the living room, looking up at me with smiles on their faces.

Imagine this time next year! they chortle, making conversation. You and him and two six-month-olds! Yuk yuk yuk.

As they wait for my response, marvelling, the walls shrink in on me as it wells up in my throat. I don’t want to cry in front of them. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that, lost it in front of this many people. But I will, if I open my mouth. I can only smile and nod and choke back the torrent.

But that’s not enough.

Gee, you’ll be soooo busy! Won’t it be great! Think of it! and they wait again, searching my face.

Actually I’d rather not think of it, thanks… is all I can manage. They chuckle and seem content with that answer, but I’m sure a couple of them saw my eyes glass up.

I’ve been crying in spurts ever since I got home, head filled with visions of a day like today plus two. Plus breastfeeding and sleep deprivation and double-poops and double-diapers and double crying and poor Evan, who will probably run headlong into a herd of stampeding rhinos (in slow motion, while I watch) as I’m trapped under a pair of wailing babies.

Justin is priceless. But still, it’s got to be me. Come summer I'll have to figure it out, get back on my feet, let him get back to work and financially compensate for my lack of maternity leave. All with my wits in safekeeping for eventual reinstatement.

I feel so alone with the weight of it, especially now.. so exhausted, so emotional, so uncertain and so raw.

November 27, 2006

Visited our doctor today, the mother-and-baby whisperer, sweet and intuitive and refreshingly sensible. She’s taken care of us since after Evan's birth, but not for his pregnancy and delivery. "So how did it go?" she asked, filling out the newly-pregnant forms and bloodwork orders. "Tell me about your first labour."

"Uhh, well …" (where to begin?) "I had back labour."

Her jaw dropped. "Really? Oh my, that’s tough," she said. She was looking at me, listening to me. Not scribbling or nodding indiscriminately. Just listening.

"…and an induction and the epidural and the episiotomy and the forceps and the stuff that makes you puke and the third-degree tears and the operating room and the strapped-down and the I.V. and the catheter and the internal monitor and the fetal distress and the fifteen-masked-faces-between-my-legs."

She gaped. "It was alright," I rushed to add. "It was only scary for the last hour or so." I’m strangely protective of it, still. I’m not sure why. I’ve fully recovered. I have a healthy child. It was Fine.

"It won’t be that way," she replied. "No matter what happens, and no matter what you and the baby need, it won’t be that way. I’ll make sure of it."

Sometimes, you don’t realize how starving you are until a heaping plate is put in front of you.

December 1, 2006

Every day brings the most unbearable hangover ever recorded in the history of mankind. The only thing that keeps me going is contemplating increasingly accurate ways to describe the misery.

I never leave the house without a barfing contingency plan: I could duck behind that bush <one block later> …or that dumpster <one block later> …or that garage <continue as per nauseum>. I wake up from a three-hour nap wanting a three-hour nap. I’m STARVING! I’m going to pass out any second if I don’t… ugh… food. Blecch. Never mind.

December 8, 2006

Oh god. Oh god.

The doctor just called with the results of my bloodwork. Red flag: they don’t call with normal results. "Your hormones are great," she said. "Too great, actually. You’re either a couple of weeks farther along than we thought, or…"

Wait. Stop right there. Please, let me enjoy just one more minute of obliviousness. But then she said it:

"…there may be more than one baby."

Know how all the world’s clocks follow Greenwich? Greenwich follows me. I can't be as far off as a week or two. Which leaves us to consider one heck of a gnarlier rabbithole than we’d anticipated.

T-t-t-twins.

I’m beyond flabbergasted. Three is above our capacity. Three is parental outnumberment. The Plan was two – neat, manageable, even. I’m not serene, nor energetic, nor wealthy enough to have three kids: especially two newborns. At the SAME TIME.

Summer 2007 would bring the second Halifax Explosion. Which would be followed by a tidal wave and the blizzard of the century. The hospital would empty in waves of screaming masses a la The Blob. Or better put: The Blobs.

Within a couple of weeks, the end to speculation will come by way of an ultrasound. Until then, I stew.

December 9, 2006

It creeps into my head, panic: we would have to buy a MINIVAN.

December 10, 2006

I am haunted by repercussions. I am terrified.

If it turns out to be anything else other than twins, I’ll have to start going to church.

Later tonight. Just got off the phone with the ever-sensible Daphne, my voice of reason. She has enough common sense for the both of us. "Pshaw," she said. "Ever wonder why the rhythm method doesn’t work? You can get pregnant any time of the month. They’ll just have to adjust your due date. Don’t worry! My cousin’s friend had the exact same thing happen…"

A glimmer of hope, to which I am grasping with the desperation of a soon-to-be drowning woman.

December 20, 2006

God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle.
God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle.
God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle.

<repeat until believed>

The radiologist had hardly touched the ultrasound wand to my skin before casually saying, “Yep—there’s one. There’s two. Probably identical, from how they’re set up.” And there they were. Tiny, grey-static pears dwarfed (for now) by the expanse of their shared home. Curled up in chosen corners, linked to nourishment by pulsing cords but not yet discernable as human. Two hummingbird hearts, flashing frantic but steady.

She leaves the room for several minutes. I stare at the ceiling, fixate on the dots of the drop-panels, the bulbs behind the plastic, the broken curtain track. Work up enough nerve to turn to the monitor, a capture of the last frame, of the two of them frozen from just a moment before. Panic and awe. Mostly panic. I wait for that inner sense of this is how it’s supposed to go, and it’s going to be alright, but it doesn’t come. I’m still waiting.

Getting used to the idea of living with two babies: that’s one thing. First, I have to get used to the idea of being pregnant with two babies.

They’ll have to roll me around in an industrial-strength wheelbarrow. They’ll have to drape my enormous girth in a shower curtain with a drawstring. They’ll have to put a flashing sign on my rear end that says WIDE LOAD! KEEP 200 FEET BACK. A loud beep will alert everyone within the immediate vicinity that I’m backing up.

We’ve been on the phone now, the evening after the ultrasound, for about four hours straight trying to sound excited to family all atwitter. My mouth is dry and my head is pounding.

For everyone else, it’s a fabulous spectacle. But for us… we’re so overwhelmed with logistics that we can’t see straight.

December 27, 2006

Shock has not yet worn off. But despite new angles of worry striking us almost daily, flashes of faith and pride have begun to kick holes in the murk.

• The radiologist said they’re each two centimeters long, an ‘excellent growth’ so far. Two centimeters long. Use your thumb and your pointer: try that on for size. They terrify me but I already feel fiercely for them, urging them to pull what they need from me to grow, to be strong.
• My job is to get them as big as I possibly can, keep them in the cooker for as long as we can all stand it. Every ounce they gain makes them better able to cope and thrive upon arrival. A sister-in-law and seasoned twin-mother advises: if you wake up at 2 AM and you’re hungry, don’t make yourself a chicken sandwich. Make three. I am to be the queen bee, the all-you-can-eat umbilical buffet, goriously* swollen with the work of gestation (*a random mistype left out the ‘L’ but then the new word fits, don’t you think?)
• They’ll teach us how to be parents of them. Evan did.
• I’m now flooded with gratitude for my partner in all this, for Justin. If there’s anyone I could manage it with, it’s him. Steady and quirky and unfailingly reliable, my buoy. I have him: we can do anything.*

* Limited-time sentiment valid for either the next fifteen minutes or until the next violent mood swing, whichever comes first.

January 1, 2007

Much of the time, I’m packed solid with hormones and a sense of impending doom. Here’s what NOT to say when you see me knuckling my temples, slumped over with my head between my legs or staring slack-jawed into space with a hand down my pants:

• At least it’s not quintuplets!
• Your grandmother did it, and she didn't have pampers. Compared to her, what are you worried about?
• My grandmother did it, and she had nine other kids and lived in the Yukon and didn’t have running water and had to fight off hungry polar bears with triplets strapped to her back. Compared to her, what are you worried about?
• It’s going to be <fantastic/amazing/incredible>. You’ll be <great/alright/fine> (at which point the declarer is absolved: There. I said what I’m supposed to say. Thank god it’s not me).

Just give me space, sweet space. Silence. No pep talks. I need to process this on my own. Words are unlikely to help—unless they’re here you go! as you hand me a voucher for six months of weekly cleaning services starting July 2007.

If I need a bucket, I’ll ask. Or a shoulder, or advice. But in the meantime, just let me feel like shit. Leave me to bask in my overwhelm. Don’t worry: I’m sure Everything Will Be Fine. But until I truly buy it, I haven’t got the energy to pretend.