I really liked having a minivan and wish I had it back. We had a pretty bad accident with it--it was a total loss, hit from behind. Our children were in the middle row of seats (3 and 2 years old at the time), and they were unhurt, thank God! But anyway, we ended up replacing it with a little 4-door car. The car gets better gas mileage and you do get to hide things in the trunk (in the van, everything was pretty much visible). But I really liked the space in the van, especially that you can fold or remove the back seat for extra storage--we never had a shortage of space and even got everything to fit on our annual Christmas trips to So. Cal.
But if you do get a van and especially if you shop for a used one, I definitely recommend one with two sliding doors and two captains seats in the middle row. Our second vehicle now is another van, but it's older with only one sliding door and a bench in the middle. I actually prefer our little car around town because this van is much more awkward to use--we only really use it for road trips and other situations when we need to haul things.
Hope this is helpful. I'm sure you'll get other good advice. Congratulations on the coming baby!
PS--Here are the names of the vans we have had: Grand Voyager (loved it except for some mechanical difficulties), Ford Windstar (the one in the accident), Dodge Caravan (our current one)