3 facts that kept me sane last night

It's been a rough week. After the period-like bleeding I had Monday night, I proceeded to have even more on Tuesday night. That was the worst of it and now I'm back to constant red spotting. Another alarming thing is that I lost 3 lbs. since this weekend, which I figure is the loss of excess water weight. I started to get that "not so pregnant" feeling when I realized my body was dumping excess fluids. This couldn't be a good sign.

Last night I was tormenting myself with internet research about early pregnancy bleeding and miscarriage. I was bracing myself for the distinct possibility that my awesome week-long pregnancy had come to an end. You can find plenty of anecdotes about women who had first trimester bleeding and went on with a healthy pregnancy. Are they the exception or the rule?

Here are the three tidbits of wisdom that helped me sleep last night and braced me for repeat bloodwork this morning:

• A 5-6 week embryo takes up a tiny space of the uterine wall. Most of the uterus is not "engaged" in supporting the early embryo. Your little embie can be snug as a bug in the East Wing of your womb while you're having total bloody chaos in the West Wing.
• The risk of miscarriage is 10% during 5-8 weeks of pregnancy (3-6 wks after conception). Who knows how real this oft-quoted number is, but I like my odds.
• When your hormone levels fluctuate, there can be a delayed effect. I figured this one out all by myself. When you take your last Pill, you don't get your period the next day - you get it 3-4 days later, right? Well my progesterone levels dropped Thurs/Friday last week and the delayed effect was a mini-period Monday-Tuesday. Tada!

Okay, on to the bloodwork results. It's all good. My HCG is way up to 5,300 (spot-on for 26 days past ovulation according to http://www.betabase.info/) and progesterone is back up at 20.

I have to run a very important meeting tomorrow morning at work, so I decided not to do my ultrasound tomorrow after all. I wouldn't want to get bad or ambiguous results and then be a pathetic wreck at the office. In fact, I think I'll put it off until Tuesday, when Dr. Snaggletooth is in the office and I can have my post-IVF meeting in the same visit. PUPO lives!