Early Signs of Pregnancy

When I was trying to get pregnant, I think I googled "early signs of pregnancy" about 43 times. The results would tell me helpful things like:
If you missed a period, you might be pregnant.

That's really helpful when you're going through infertility treatments and you want to know whether you might be pregnant a week (or ten days) before you are even supposed to get your period.

I can only go by my own experience, but for me, I felt completely fine, normal and not wierd at all for the first week after ovulation. But about six or seven days after I'd had the IUI (that's intrauterine insemination, for those of you who are new to this) my breasts got really sore - in a way that was a little different from the way they get sore before my period. It was like the skin itself was sensitive - I hardly wanted the sheet to touch me at night.

I happened to be at an ob-gyn appointment with my sister about eight days after the IUI, and asked her about it. She said it was too early to have breast tenderness as a sign of pregnancy - that it might have been from the shots I'd been taking prior to ovulation (I used the Gonal-F pen to help me develop more eggs and a progesterone shot to trigger ovulation).

Soooo....

She was wrong.

I also had period-like cramps - slightly less intense, and only on one side (four weeks later, I'm still having slight cramps from time to time on that side - and apparently that's normal). But I didn't break out the way I usually do on about day 24-25 of my cycle (four days before I usually get my period), and my cramps didn't get severe on day 28, the way they usually did.

I was also really, really out of breath going up stairs by day 10 (after ovulation). I know it wasn't just being out of shape because it was happening on the same stairs I take all the time without any shortness of breath.

Some women claim that they "just know." I didn't. I was so busy and stressed out right after the IUI that the only reason I thought it might work was that I figured that there was no way that it would - making it more likely that it would (reverse psychology?).

I got the first fuzzy line eleven days after the IUI (11 days after ovulation). My blood pregnancy test was positive fourteen days after. My HcG level was 263, which is apparently "excellent"- whatever that means. I'm guessing (hoping) that it's been rising ever since because I've definitely been feeling nauseous (HcG is the hormone responsible for morning sickness - or all-day sickness as I think it should be called). Supposedly the level doubles approximately every 48 hours.

Other than feeling sick when my stomach is empty, I'm hungry almost all the time. Or at least my stomach makes me think I'm hungry - I get full much more quickly than I used to, and at night, I cannot tolerate sweets (used to have a Skinny Cow almost every night) or I get leg cramps and get jumpy. Wierd.