The cough

Cooper and I shared a cold about three weeks ago, and now we are sharing the dry hacking cough from hell. It affects both of us the same way- we cough when we are falling asleep, periodically through the night, and a lot early in the morning. Neither of us coughs much during the day.

For a while, Cooper was coughing hard enough to eventually dry heave, if we didn't somehow get him to stop before it got that bad. Getting the cough to stop isn't hard- a glass of water, an upright position, rubbing the back- and voila, no cough. But at 3am, this seems a little more complex somehow. Needless to say, we had a couple of pretty grumpy nights with one or two 30 minute coughing breaks which inevitably turned into groggy snuggle sessions on the couch. But that's over now, and Cooper's cough is pretty minimal at this point.

So luckily, the worst of it is over for both of us, and now we both pretty much only cough a little at falling asleep, and a little at waking up. Currently, my cough is worse than Cooper's, and it plagues me especially while attempting to fall asleep. Perversely, if I lie totally flat, the cough isn't as bad. But I can't lie totally flat normally, because then I get vicious intolerable indigestion. So I lie flat until the cough subsides, then I get indigestion, then I prop myself up on pillows to relieve the indigestion issue, and then I start to cough. Repeat.

Last night was great because I ate dinner at 3pm so I didn't have anything to make indigestion crop up. It was the fastest I've fallen asleep in about a week, because I could just lie on my side, barely cough, and not have to fear my own stomach acids trying to kill me.

Amazingly, Matt can sleep through all of this. I think that's mostly a good thing, because otherwise all three of us would be sleep deprived.

The other good thing is that this cough is it. There is nothing else. It is a ghost of illness past. No fever, no misery, no sniffles, no congestion, barely any coughing at all during the daytime, nothing, this is it. So while I sort of feel like going to a doctor and being like WHAT GIVES with the cough, at the same time, because I'm pregnant and because Cooper is so young, I guarantee I know what they will say, "Rest, fluids, hot showers, tea with honey, and it will go away soon." I know for a fact that neither of us can take a cough suppressant. So there goes that.

Hack. Blech. Excuse me....