“Use your imagination,” I said. “Margot and Steve would look amazing pushing these through Kensington Gardens.”

“Too conspicuous,” Nick said. “Also these can’t be up to code.”

He crouched down and poked at one of the spoked wheels. Nick had read an unending stream of baby books since that first ultrasound, and had taken to doing things like moving me away from air-conditioning vents, in case they were circulating secret asbestos, and making his own binder of baby safety tips and product ratings. It was sweet, and sweetly annoying.

“No, sadly, these will probably end up in a basement waiting for a made-up museum exhibit of things we once used,” he said, straightening to a standing position. He started vrooming one of them around in a circle. “Perhaps we could have a bit of fun in the halls with them first. Twin races.”

“You’re on,” I said, grabbing the other one and darting down the corridor. “Last one to the kitchen forfeits naming rights.”

“This is a practice round,” Nick yelled after me. “Are you supposed to run that fast?”

“Damn right,” I called back. “Technically I have six legs now.”

Jokes aside, the more actual the twins felt, the more I nested, which I had thought was an old wives’ tale until I spent an entire afternoon arranging the onesie drawer in the room that was meant to be their nursery. Getting the house ready for the babies, everything folded and tucked in just so, was deeply soothing. All the questions that needed to be answered were nice ones, with no wrong answers—what color would be most restful in their bedroom? Did we want duckies or puppies for the wallpaper trim?—and because we’d decided not to find out the twins’ gender (so as not to blurt it out to the press, but also because it seemed like one of the last, great surprises a person might experience), I spent a lot of time in a pleasant haze of lemon yellow and pistachio green.

One afternoon, Nick and I were up in the Den of Secrets, him knitting and me rooting through Georgina’s things to see what I could add to the babies’ growing bookshelves besides her Little Women volumes and the tomes I’d brought back from Muscatine.

“I was sure I saw a Beatrix Potter anthology in here somewhere.” I stood back and squinted at the room’s uppermost shelves. “I bet I can see up there if I stand on her chair.”

“Absolutely not,” Nick said. “I cannot take you to the ER and explain that you fell because I was watching my pregnant wife climb up a bookcase in our sex den. I do not even need a baby book to know that.”

He put down the nubbly hat-adjacent object he was knitting and pulled over Georgina’s desk chair, carefully standing on it and running his finger across some book spines way at the top of her shelves.

“Oooh, The Adventures of Tintin,” Nick said. “Baby Pret A Manger and Baby Masala Zone will need these for sure.” He tossed them down to the ground, where they landed with a dusty thud. “Aha, here’s your Potter, poppet.”