5 weeks, and Beta #2

I went in yesterday for my second betas, which also marked 5 weeks... and then I was too tired to write about it. I hope that's a good sign :) My betas needed to double since the first number, so they needed to be about 5000, and instead they came back at 6350. I'm strangely not that excited about that, although that shows that this pregnancy has continued to progress. I think it may be a combination of worry because my cramping and spotting were worse the night before, and my nurse wasn't quite as enthusiastic when she called with the results this time as she was for the first betas. She did try to reassure me that the spotting and cramping were fine and not to worry about it, but I think I'd already begun tailspinning. I made it for about two days with my positive thinking and good feeling about this pregnancy, and now I'm convinced I'm just going to miscarry again. So I'm changing my mantra a little bit, and trying to remind myself that statistically speaking, chances are that I won't miscarry, and I'm also trying to keep in mind that every successful pregnancy had to start somewhere. I'm so focused on just trying to get through first trimester, like it's some battle against the odds for me to make it through to the other side, forgetting that everyone else who has had a baby somehow managed to survive these 13 weeks intact. And it's not like I can really do anything about it anyway if I'm going to miscarry, so I just need to get my head on straight again.

I somehow forgot to take a 4 week belly shot, even though I got my first positive HPT at 3w3d. So here's the first of hopefully many belly pics (and hopefully for some of them, I'll actually remember to brush my hair first!)... although at this early stage, any perceived belly is just due to bloat :) And while I'm on progesterone in oil (PIO) and estrogen shots for another 1.5 weeks, after that point until I'm 10 weeks I'll only have to do the estrogen shots (every third day) and 3x-daily progesterone pills, which will be a lot better than these daily injections. I blame the injections for most of this bloat, since that had already started even before the embryo transfer. Besides the bloating and increased appetite, the latest symptom to crop up has been fatigue. I thought I was just experiencing my normal end of the workday/workweek tiredness that can happen if I'm not sleeping well, but given that I was getting almost catatonic by 10pm the last few nights, I think there may be more to it. Especially since last night I could barely keep my eyes open by 9pm and ended up going to bed earlier than normal despite it being a Friday night. And while I didn't sleep that well last night either, I have been half-asleep all day today as well.