Obsessive Ruminating on Pre-E

So I think I have a cold. My throat is sore, I'm all stuffy & snotty (sorry, I know that's gross, but I figured since I already threw the words "mucus plug" out there, a little snot couldn't be much worse!), & I have a headache & am totally nauseous. Although those last 2 are probably the pre-e, which also generally makes you feel like crap. Normally I wouldn't be super concerned about a cold, but I have this random fear that if the boys have to be born this week & I'm sick, that I won't get to see them. (I'm totally going to go obsessively google this in a minute, which will probably NOT help, but I'll do it anyways.) I've also been obsessively watching my weight since we got home & checking for signs of increased puffiness in my face & hands. Is a lb a day acceptable for a pre-e preggo? Who knows.... I still have a double chin, & my hands are all dimpled (usually they're skeletal) but I think that's how I left the hospital. The docs all seemed very confident that if things got worse, I would KNOW. So I think I'm ok, & just super paranoid.

Arg. I hate being sick, & I especially hate problems that have no defined course. Our peri explained pre-e to us as a "syndrome"; a collection of problems that taken together tend to follow a certain course & have been given the name pre-e. The signs of this stupid "syndrome" are so random & scattered, it's really hard to keep track of at home unless it gets bad. For instance-- while high blood pressure & rapid weight gain (like 10+lbs in a week) are indicators, so is protein in your urine (can 't track that at home), & hyper-reactive reflexes (found this out when everyone kept banging on my legs & then ducking so they didn't inadvertently get kicked by my wildly flailing limbs), & headaches (but these are also normal for pg, so aren't the best way to tell) & seeing spots or lights (ok, maybe when this started happening I should have done something) or blurry vision. There's also all kinds of things that go wrong with your liver & kidneys, & clearly we can't monitor any of that at home either. Sigh.... I'm dreading Tuesday bc I don't want things to have gotten worse, but at the same time I'm so anxious to check on my guys that Tuesday really can't get here fast enough.

Some random pre-e facts I thought were kind of interesting: this particular pg problem could actually be dad's fault. (I found this kinda funny, as so far everything that's caused problems for us has been unequivocally my body acting up, so I was glad to tease N that this one was all on him!) They think pre-e happens when the babies (or baby) start requiring more blood than their placentas can supply. So mom's body raises her blood pressure to increase blood flow through the placentas, which somehow also affects mom's platelet count, & her kidney & liver function (that part gets really technical & medical). But bc they think the whole thing is kicked off by hormonal changes in the placentas that tell mom's body to kick into high gear, & dad's genes are in the placenta as well, it could be dad's fault. (It seems there are studies that show some women develop pre-e with certain babies' daddies & not others, leading to the prediction pre-e may have something to do with dad's genetics.)
So really, pre-e is just mom's body trying to be a good mother by sacrificing mom's health for the health of the babies. Which would be fine, except that once mom gets sick enough, the babies get sick too. Which is why we have so many tests on Tuesday-- they're going to be looking at the blood profusion through the placentas, which I'm told is the first indicator that the babies aren't tolerating all this very well. We also have an NST for the dudes, & cervical check for me, since if all these contrax are further shrinking/dilating my cervix, we may not have much longer regardless of the pre-e.

Speaking of contrax... I had horrid, very uncomfortable (bordering on painful) that required that I "breathe through them" all yesterday. (I had no idea what they meant by "breathe through a contraction until I found myself actually doing it... kinda weird.) Anyways, they were like 20 mins apart ALL DAY. Exhausting. Although they finally let up when I went to bed.

I feel like we're on borrowed time.