pregnancy allergies

It's allergy season, and everything is blooming in my back yard. Because I'm pregnant, I can't take my best allergy medicine, Advil Sinus. I can only take antihistamines and decongestants. But it's the smidge of sudafed that's in the Advil Sinus that I really need to dry this stuff up! Oddly enough, when you're pregnant, you can take sudafed, but not advil. For some reason, it's OK to give my child speed, but not an anti-inflammatory?! That's seems so wrong. The doctor says I can take behind the counter Sudafed, but I haven't taken a full dose of that stuff in years! The last time I took two full sudafeds in one day (way back in college) I didn't sleep for 3 days. So despite what the doctor says, I'm scared to take it.

As a result of my fears and protectiveness of my little one, my allergies are really kicking my butt! Today, I've developed a little cough. My throat is a little scratchy so this should not be a bad cough. However....after being morning sick for 2 months and practicing my vomiting for all that time (I'm really good at it!), my body no longer knows the difference between coughing and vomiting. So my cough sounds HORRIBLE!!! And with each cough, I'm trying not to let my stomach muscles get into a rhythm that will lead to vomiting. Normally, when I cough, it's three coughs in a row. But, three is the magic number that leads to dry heaves, though. So I've got these huge coughs that I force myself to stop at 2 coughs.

The other thing my body is confused about now is the difference between nausea and hunger. I can't tell them apart right now. The good thing is that, even when I was legitimately nauseous, eating usually helped me to feel better. I just had to force myself to swallow when I was really nauseous which is trickier than you'd think.

Oh! Other news on allergies during pregnancy for me is good news!! Foods that I'm normally allergic to, don't negatively affect me right now! Usually, 2 baby dill pickles had a good chance of giving me a huge horrible headache, but not the case now!!! So I've been giving in to the pregnancy cliche and eating lots and lots of pickles. Also, I usually can only eat 2 or three strawberries before they start making my mouth and throat itch. I realized last night that I've been eating tons of strawberries (usually right after pickles) and have not had to stop because of itchiness! Maybe this means I can eat cantelope this summer!! It's been years since I enjoyed a full slice of cantelope. And I LOVE cantelope. And pears! Oh wow, I bet I'm going to buy waaaay too much fruit this week at the grocery store. For years, I've been eating dried fruit instead of fresh. For some reason, dried or cooked fruit doesn't make me itch. So bring on the fresh fruit!