Today is day 5 of being sick. Sore throat Thursday turned into stuffed nose Friday and Saturday turned into hacking coughing fits on Sunday. All of this equaled a lot of tears yesterday. On Friday, the OB nurse gave me a list of 5 things I could take. I went to CVS to get something and made the mistake of checking with the Pharmacist. She said she wouldn't recommend taking ANY of them so I bought natural throat drops and some menthol disks to melt in the shower and inhale the vapors. Saturday I felt worse and by Sunday, I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't imagine how my suffering wasn't having a negative affect on the baby.
So, I decided to call the on-call OB/Midwife. I waited and waited and never got a call back. So this of course lead to more tears. I decided to call the on-call doctor at my PCPs office. She called back almost immediately. But, she recommended I take nothing and go in to see someone in her office today. Again came a flood of tears.
I actually got a good night's sleep last night - first one in days - but decided I should try the OB's office again. I spoke to a nurse right away and explained the situation. She recommended plain old Robitussin and told me not to talk to the Pharmacists anymore. So I went online to look up Robitussin and they no longer make a plain Robitussin - they ALL contain a certain drug the nurse specifically told me NOT to take. So, I remembered back to the original list of meds I got on Friday and I know Mucinex was on there. So, I took some this morning. I definitely feel like things are loosening and coughs are more productive and less violent.
So why did I wait? Why didn't I just take the Mucinex on Friday when the nurse told me it was ok? Because I was petrified of harming the baby. I figured my suffering through it was the right thing to do. But my internal struggle yesterday between "would meds harm the baby" vs. "is my stress level harming the baby" really had me torn. So I gave in today. I hope and pray that I made the right choice.
