Worry Wart

I had a nightmare. About losing one of the babies.

I think as the reality of their birth gets closer and closer, my bouts of soon-to-be mommy anxiety are getting more and more intense. Usually I'm stressing about the day-to-day stuff. How am I going to breastfeed two babies at once? How do I bathe one if the other has a meltdown? How am I going to deal with this whole stay-at-home mom thing? Will I be able to give them each the kind of individual attention they need? How do I raise them to be healthy, happy, independent boys and not serial killers?

This is the first time in a long time - probably since we were at the halfway mark - that I've actually had any kind of morbid thought about losing one of them.

This latest nightmare may be due to my OB appointment yesterday. It wasn't horrible by any means. I'm now 75% effaced (instead of 50%) but still only 1 cm dilated. That's all okay. However, I've gained 8 lbs since I saw her last week. EIGHT! It's all water retention but still! That ain't right! My blood pressure was definitely on the high side compared to my normal although still acceptable (120/80). But that weight gain and the fact that I'm carrying two in here, which puts me in a higher risk category for developing preeclampsia, got my doc nervous again.

Honestly, I wasn't really worried. I was more excited about the prospect of meeting my boys soon. Yay! But then I got home and finally read through the brochure about pregnancy and high blood pressure that my doc had given me a few weeks ago. Turns out it is really scary stuff! And I have 2 of the 3 warning signs for impending preeclampsia.

1. Sudden weight gain of more than 2 lbs per week (yep!)
   
2. Swelling, particularly of the face and fingers (check!)
   
3. Headaches, blurred vision and upper abdominal pain (I haven't had any of these)

To top it off, Greg came home yesterday and told me he'd been talking with Lauren, one of our baby shower hosts, about this. She apparently has a friend who lost her baby due to preeclampsia. Damn, I really didn't need to know that... And now we're both freaked out. Great.

I go back in on Friday to have everything checked out. If my bp is high (in the 140/90 range), I'll be wheeled straight over to the hospital to get this show on the road. At this point, I'm completely fine with that. Better safe than sorry, right. And by the time I'd be discharged, the babies should be at 36 weeks exactly, which would probably mean, no time spent in the NICU.

So I'm going to try not to freak out about the what-ifs, and instead focus on the positive. I could have outside babies by the end of this week! My boys could be here in a matter of days! That's insane... :)