Twins

I might as well come out here: I'm pregnant. Not just that, we're expecting twins. That's two babies. Extraordinary.

We went for our first antenatal appointment on the 10th of June, just shy of 12 weeks into the pregnancy. This is a purely extractive event, an opportunity for the hospital to populate your file with data about your medical history, vital statistics, immunity and so on - and to verify that there really is a baby. It's not the sort of appointment where a "practitioner" talks to you about your feelings - physical or emotional; nor even the sort where they make recommendations relating to vitamin intake or exercise. Extract the information, build a file, then cheerio until week 20.

So it's all very efficient, quite cheery, not especially personal. The last bit is the scan - medically required to "date" the pregnancy, but probably really an incentive to make couples show up for what is otherwise an endless round of queues and samples.

I'm lying on a table with jelly on my belly, and Simon's sitting on a chair at the end of the table, holding my foot, tenderly. The sonographer is very quiet, white noise blurs indecipherably across the screen in front of us. "Emm", she says at last. "Do you know you're expecting twins?"

Our initial reaction was to giggle, both of us. I absolutely did not believe her. I think I replied to her utterly ridiculous question (how would we know?) with an equally ridiculous denial: "no I don't think so. There's no family history." I was quite sure she was wrong.

But she wasn't wrong, and I was terrified. There's no space really in a maternity hospital for terror. No space for confusion or worry either. It's all resolutely cheery and efficient. For the first time in my life, I felt my gender weigh on me as a burden: I had visions of myself tied to my house (now tiny in those visions), never returning to work, never excaping from the pressure of simultaneous breast feeding and the most enormous pram imaginable. I felt traitorous for fearing it, but I was terrified.

When I went to the office to book my next appointments, the girl took my file back from me and replaced all of my identity stickers with new ones: Multiple Births Clinic. When I returned two weeks later those had been joined by additional stickers detailing all the procedures and investigations I was no longer eligible for. The sausage machine had ground to a halt, and I'd been lifted speedily out of it: you're no longer part of our efficient, cheery practise: you go over here. So much for the midwife system. So much for the most natural thing in the world.

What's amazing isn't the system - which is, fundamentally, a good one. What's amazing is how quickly you get over all those feelings of exclusion and panic. I'm having two babies! Proper order! By now we've had a second scan, seen the two of them squirming around, waving at us, much more this time than unintelligible white noise.

I promise faithfully not to use this blog to bleat on about motherhood and goo - I know how dull that is. But I do think that twins merit a special mention. It is rather unusual, don't you think? And really rather exciting.