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She was 27 weeks pregnant with her first child when she found herself in the ICU of a Long Island hospital fighting for her life against the coronavirus.

It was the nighttime that Melanie McGurk dreaded the most.

“That’s when it really got bad,” the mom-to-be recalled. “It was like I was using every muscle in my body just to try and breathe.”

McGurk, an occupational therapist for North Shore University Hospital, told The Post in an emotional interview about how she contracted COVID-19, her excruciating battle with it — and the drug trial she believes likely saved her and her unborn baby.

The 31-year-old Farmingdale woman said that at the beginning of March — when the number of New York infections was still in the double digits  — she was pulling out all the stops to make sure she was safe from catching the virus. She washed her hands until they were “raw” and let her husband, Brendan, do all of the shopping.

But she was still going to work, and by March 14, she started feeling chest palpitations, a sore throat and shortness of breath. 

The next morning, she had a fever, so she called her obstetrician, who told her to go straight to the hospital.

“It never even crossed my mind that I either wouldn’t be coming out later that day or maybe the next day,” McGurk said of the moment she said goodbye to her husband in the parking lot of the Katz Women’s Hospital at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, forced to enter the infirmary alone. 

Two days later, McGurk’s chest x-rays showed she had pneumonia, and she received her coronavirus test back: She was positive. 

“I was just overcome with emotion,” McGurk said. “It was my worst fear… I could barely even talk” while breaking the news to her husband and parents. 

“That day was definitely one of the worst days, just getting that news, because [before then], always in the back of my head, I’m like, ‘You know, ‘maybe it’s something else,’ ” McGurk said. 

“Then once you get that, ‘No, you’re COVID positive,’ it just changes your whole perception.” 

She recalled a tender moment with a nurse at the time who, despite risking catching the bug herself, knelt down and gave McGurk a hug. 

McGurk was immediately brought to a COVID isolation unit and treated with hydroxychloroquine, still hopeful she’d be home in a few days even as she battled a pervading sense of darkness that came from the solitude. 

“It’s hard to even put it into perspective just how alone you actually feel,” McGurk recounted of the isolation ward. “You feel like you’re in this dark place where you just feel like you’re stuck.” 

McGurk’s condition only worsened.

Anytime she so much as rolled over, her heart rate would shoot up and she’d be gasping for air.

Suddenly, getting up and walking 5 feet to the bathroom left her breathless and her Tylenol regimen was proving more and more powerless as her fever returned faster and more vicious each time. 

“Five o’clock would come around and I would start, like, dreading the night because every single night, that’s when it really got bad,” McGurk said. “The fever would get worse. The shortness of breath would get worse.”

She recalled thinking, “Am I ever gonna get better? Am I ever gonna get out of the hospital? What’s gonna happen to the baby?” 

After one trip to the bathroom left her unable to breathe and sent medical workers running to her side, McGurk was whisked away to the ICU, where the infectious-disease doctors started preparing her for the worst. 

“‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to the ICU. They’re gonna put me on a vent,’ thinking, like, the worst-case scenario,” McGurk said. “And [the doctors] said that’s an option, and if it comes to that, ‘we might have to deliver the baby’ ” early. 

She was told not to drink anything in case she had to be intubated and FaceTimed with a doctor from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit who told her what to expect if she had to deliver three months early. 

She was told that if that happened, her baby girl would also end up on a ventilator because she’d be too young to breathe on her own. 

That’s when McGurk was approached by doctors from the hospital’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research who told her about a controlled blind trial she was eligible to enroll in. The trial involved the drug Kevzara, which is being eyed as possibly being able to block the overreaction of the body’s immune response to COVID-19, which often leads to death. 

McGurk wouldn’t know whether she’d actually be getting the drug or just a saline solution, but as a pregnant woman, it was the only trial she was eligible for. 

She said an infectious-disease doctor told her at one point, “You’re getting worse, your chest x-rays are getting worse, and this might be your best shot at getting better.

“You could improve in a couple of days from now without it, but there’s no telling for sure.” 

She said she spoke with her family at length about the decision and that they were concerned she was being used as a “guinea pig” and had no real way to know if this would help or hurt. But her husband encouraged her to try, she said. 

“My husband was just like, you know, ‘Everyone’s saying this is what you need to get better. Everyone’s saying that if you don’t get better, it’s not gonna help the baby in the long run, either. So you need to do what could potentially, you know, help save you,’ ”McGurk recounted. 

After conferring with her obstetrician, who implored her to “strongly consider” the trial, McGurk enrolled for it, sat for the 1-hour IV infusion, and within 24 hours, noticed her breathing had improved.

Two days after receiving the transfusion, McGurk was able to sit up and have a conversation without losing her breath and received the most “promising news” yet — her inflammation levels were down to 14 after peaking at 154, with the normal level being 4. 

On April 1, McGurk was discharged and allowed to go home. 

While she’s still reeling from the trauma she endured, saying she has “PTSD” from the experience, she said she’s grateful to be home and is hoping for the best when her delivery date comes up June 22. 

“The trauma my body went through, other than just the COVID, like I was just so sick, you know, all the medications that I got in the hospital, like, how is it gonna affect the baby in the long term?” she said. 

“It really is like a constant thought in my head that I can’t seem to shake.” 

Still, her doctors say the baby is fine, and McGurk — who still doesn’t know whether she actually received the drug — implored other mothers who might be in a similar situation to “trust your instincts” and don’t wait to get help. 

“If you feel like something’s wrong, don’t hesitate to call, I wouldn’t wait it out because in my situation, I was nervous that something was wrong, and I called right away,” McGurk said. 

“I think that made a difference, I got the care that I needed from the start, I didn’t allow anything to get worse at home before following up.”