Cough, flu loss of taste and smell - this was the order by which the symptoms arrived. It started with a dry cough and itchy throat that I didn't think too much of. I drank more water, ate lozenges, but the cough didn't go away. By the fourth day I had this symptom, I took my ART test and well, it ended up showing a positive mark. Damn.
At this point in time, I was 18 weeks pregnant and am currently still under 35 years old. I had also been fully vaccinated with Moderna. Hence, I qualified for home recovery (thank God, I really didn't want to have to go to some community care facility). At first, the symptoms were mild. On the first day, my cough sort of went away, but I started to have this blocked nose instead. Sleeping at night was difficult with a blocked nose (but it's not worse than the usual type of blocked nose). However, that's when the most dreaded symptom set in. I realised that I couldn't smell or taste anything. It wasn't just the ordinary reduced senses that people get when they have flu. There was nothing. I had a really strong diffuser in the house but I couldn't smell it at all. Even if there was smoke from a cigarette or incense, I couldn't detect it either. When food was being cooked (even when it was beef), it was odourless to me. With my sense of taste, I could still taste when something is sweet, salty, sour or bitter. However, I couldn't tell the sweetness of an apple or the sweetness of a grape apart. They both just tasted the same to me. For someone with a normally keen sense of smell and taste, this was horrifying. I felt crippled when I cooked, and it felt dangerous to me. For someone pregnant, I had to watch my diet closely because I shouldn't be eating fruits that are spoiled, and I should not inhale any secondhand smoke from my neighbours when my windows are opened. But I couldn't detect any of these. Most people lose their appetite when they can't taste or smell something. Honestly, so did I. I mean, it didn't quite matter what I was eating since I couldn't taste it right? However, being pregnant also meant that I had to ensure that I had sufficient nutrition so that my baby could continue to grow and develop properly. Rather than bother about taste, I cared more about the nutritional value of the food I was eating.
I am very thankful for the vaccination. Without that, I'm not sure how severe the symptoms would have been. I did not get fever or body aches throughout the entire time, and I could see visible improvements to my condition on a daily basis. My oxygen saturation still hovered between 98-99% using the pulse oximeter given by the government. I only had to take one zyrtec throughout the entire week. It took me exactly 7 days before my ART showed up as negative, and since I'm vaccinated, I'm also deemed as non-infectious by the 10th day. While my sense of taste and smell are still reduced (at least I got them back though!) and I still have remnant bits of mucus left to clear, I can pretty much go about my normal life without much of an issue. I also have no problems breathing or speaking. I read about the statistics of pregnant women requiring oxygen or ICU because they weren't vaccinated and I'm thankful that I'm not one of them. I'm also really thankful that though I wasn't able to self-isolate from my husband, he did not contract COVID at all (he remained well and ART negative all the way).
The moral of the story is this: get vaccinated, and then COVID will not be much of an issue.
Also, trust God. Prior to getting COVID, I thought about it and completely freaked out because I was afraid of how it would affect me and the baby. But when I actually contracted it, prayer really helped me set my mind on God and trust Him, and inexplicable peace came upon me throughout the entire week.