He should have been used to this by now.
Five times they had went through this, each one a unique experience in their own ways, but it was also due to past experiences—from what happened to his mother with him, and what had once nearly happened to his wife with one of their sons—that the instinctual fear that she would not survive childbirth never fully went away.
This pregnancy seemed to drain Nerdanel even more than the others had, and her belly continued to swell bigger than it ever had when she carried their other sons.
His worry for her was enough to take him away from the forge for long periods of time and give much of his fëa to her as he could, and he was grateful for all of his sons' support in their mother when he needed to be away, trusting she would be in good hands.
But when she was already so heavy with child that a healer instructed that she needed bedrest until the birth, his paranoia spiked to the brink of madness when word spread in Valinor of Melkor's most recent release from the Void.
Though he had his Silmarils locked away and his heavily pregnant wife wrapped protectively in his arms in bed, he had stopped sleeping since.
And sometimes, in his sleep deprived state, in the late hours of Telperion's silver light, he could almost swear he felt two restless kicks at once nudging his hands, where they rested tenderly around her swollen middle.
Which was odd, for it was only one fëa that brushed his own, was it not?
