Six days later and I'm already sick.

I've known I'm pregnant for six whole days, and I've already managed to make myself completely miserable.

I could deal with the exhaustion, the water retention, the constant feeling of having pulled some sort of groin muscle, the heartburn and the nausea. Really. It wasn't that bad.

Then the temperature dropped from summer to fall overnight and I woke up with the tell-tale sign of an oncoming sinus infection: wicked post-nasal drip irritating my throat. It had gotten so bad by yesterday evening that I had to take a Tylenol to go to sleep so I wasn't up coughing all night. I woke up this morning with the full-blown infection: stuffy head, runny nose, sore throat, raspy cough.

The pregnancy bible--What to Except When You're Expecting, by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel--tells me that pregnant women get sinusitis all the time because the hormones make your mucus membranes swell up and get germy. Then they mention that untreated sinus infections can last for weeks. My sinus infections last for weeks anyway.

So, I guess I should maybe call my doctor today. Get some baby-safe antibiotics, that sort of thing. Nasty decaf tea with honey (the only thing I've been drinking for 24 hours) isn't cutting it. I can't take a sinus infection of top of everything else. Now I'm not sure if I'm queasy because of the five-week-old mooch living in my belly or because there are fifteen colonies of mucus living in lungs. At least the kid had the good sense to tone down the cramp-like pulled muscle feeling today.

That's it. Doctor's office, here I come. If I can't get into my doctor, I'll go see my husband's doctor (I swear that man never has any patients, my husband always gets a same-day appointment), if I can't see my husband's doctor, I will waiting in line at the CVS cheapo clinic for two hours (like the last time I had a sinus infection and couldn't get to my doctor, actually).

*cough, cough, hack*

Update, 8:00 PM:

I ended up seeing an associate of my doctor. She was a very nice lady who looked about my age. Anyway, she didn't think I needed antibiotics and recommended treating the symptoms instead of going after the infection because I hadn't been sick very long. She recommended Mucinex and told me I got get the original, D or DM. I went for Mucinex D, because it has pseudoephedrine and I have a desire to hit my sinuses with the strongest thing possible.

You can't just waltz into a drugstore anymore and buy pseudoephedrine, of course. So I take the little card, walk up to the pharmacy counter, and hand my driver's license to the pharmacist in order to prove that I'm old enough to buy the stuff. Only, the pharmacist has some vision problems, and so I ended up reading all the information off of my license to him and waiting for him to put it in the computer.

This would not have been a big deal if I had a) not been dressed like a sick, miserable hobo and b) been able to speak like a human being. Although the doctor didn't find a mucus coating in my throat, she did say that it was red and irritated, which is why it feels so sore and why it hurts to talk. I sound like vaguely like a bullfrog, and the pharmacist kept asking me to repeat things because he couldn't understand me. Like this:

Him: What's your date of birth?
Me: Oh-four-oh-two-nineteen-eighty-six.
Him: Ninety-six?
Me: What? No. EIghty-six.
Him: Okay.
Me: Dude, I couldn't have even driven here if I was fourteen.
Him: Right.

This would have been slightly embarrassing but bearable if it hadn't been for my outfit. I don't bother with dressing myself or doing my hair and face when I'm sick. Any other time, I make myself presentable, even if I'm running late and only have time for some powder and mascara, but when I'm sick? Forget it.

I was wearing sneakers... okay, I'm pregnant and my feet are all swollen, so I've been wearing sneakers for the past week. Fine, sneakers, even though I hate people who wear sneakers when they aren't exercising. But I was also wearing extra-long yoga pants (the loose kind, not butt-huggers) and an oversize hoodie. Not just any oversize hoodie, either: it's from my high school, and it's about two-and-half sizes too big for me. Very good for curling up on the couch with a hot drink, not so good for going out in public when you graduated from high school six years ago. Also, I'd done nothing with my hair. Literally. I have a lot of hair, almost three feet. I'd left it down all day, so it'd gone totally limp and lifeless.

Let's recap: sick pregnant lady, too-big high school hoodie, droopy long yoga pants, sneakers, no makeup, stringy lifeless hair. I looked like a homeless person.

And I had to recite all of my personal information in a frog-voice.

...I'm taking my Mucinex and going to bed now.