It’s done. We’ve always been impulsive that way — once we know a task is at hand, we don’t tend to agonize.

We traded the Jetta for the first one we looked at: a newish Mazda MPV with low mileage and remotely self-opening doors. The burgeoning love affair between myself and these doors betrays just how fitting this vehicle is, despite our best intentions to compromise everything *but* our funk for our family life.

(Naturally, every last one of our 'best intentions' predate the news of one plus twins. And each is doomed to a similar fate: a dedicated twinkies cupboard for bribes, mandatory soothers until at least grade seven, a front yard littered with overturned plastic Fun Karts, hot pockets and cheez whiz for breakfast, 24x7 Barney... aesthetics and principles be damned. If it works, it gets a green light from here on in.)

In fact, I watched our last remaining shred of funk in the rearview mirror this morning, thumb out on the side of the highway, a red-and-white checkered tie bag over its shoulder.

Likely thinking to itself, Gawd! About time. I still can’t believe I stuck around after the mother let the kid blow his nose on the hem of her shirt. But this? A MINIVAN? That’s it, man. I’m outta here.

Now, all that’s left is the high-waisted jeans, the acrylic reindeer sweaters at Christmas and the bright-white orthopedic sneakers.

And the production crew of TLC’s Ten Years Younger who will surprise me as I sit crocheting in my rec room, then bring me to the 360-degree mirror and pat my hand earnestly as they say, “Kate, why do you think 75% of people surveyed thought you were a Pentecostal retiree?”

And I’ll say, trembling in my pleated trousers, “Well, it all started three years ago when we bought our first minivan…”

Last time, I was so determined. Every month, I told myself, I’d capture the glory of My First Pregnancy with grinning, top-lifting profiles charting my miraculous transformation from overstuffed sausage to adorable basketball to land-borne whale.

But I slacked. And slacked. And then gained forty pounds, and other priorities mysteriously trumped picture-taking. Like counting onesies. Again. And again. And folding them (ha!) into precious baskets according to colour. No.. no… by size. No, no.. by season.

(Yes, it’s true. Waiting for a watermelon to emerge from between one’s legs inspires chronic, OCD-inspired nest-building.)

And then he arrived, and so it was done. But this pregnancy… well, let’s say it packs twice the spectacle. I am compelled to document JUST HOW HUGE I get, for the same reasons a tourist presses up against the glass of a bus window to snap a real-live New York City mugging.

In one of my only belly-shots from last time (aside from the halloween hippies and the embarrassing, due-date video of a crude interpretive dance involving a broccoli stalk), taken late September of 2004, I am six months along and smaller than I am now at four months.

With two passengers, I popped at a measly 12 weeks.

And yesterday at 18 weeks, perhaps halfway to Explosion Day, I'm already sick of maternity clothes weeks before single-baby mamas even have to unbutton the first snap of their favourite super-hip jeans in order to sit down.

Bring on the wheelbarrow! And pass me a glass of Nestle Quik while you're at it. And while you're up, can you do me another box of K.D.? And don't forget the ketchup. It's not for me. I'm no bottom-feeder. It's for THE BABIES.

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.