OT - Poisonous Bay Leaves?

I had a crazy last 24 hours and here's why:

I was at my mum's house eating dinner and accidentally swallowed a small bay leaf that was in the casserole. I could feel it in my throat but thankfully it went down. I didn't see it in this morning's poop so maybe tomorrow? (LOL sorry if tmi)

Then fastforward to today. I was making chicken soup and my DH had brought me 'fresh bay leaves' which he got from work. People come to the clinic where he works and they bring random homegrown stuff with them and this time they brought those leaves.

Ok so i used one of the fresh bay leaves in the soup and...wa lah! The soup soon started to smell like the most rotten pungent smell you could think of. It was like really off chicken, or old chicken. I first thought it was the chicken. Ofcourse meanwhile my husband was complaining about my 'unnecessary worrying'. He kept saying that's how chicken smells like sometimes and he insisted on eating it. Well he had a bowlful of soup with some chicken while i was gagging from the smell. He just loaded it up with pepper (which i don't eat as per chinese medicine diet im on). And even started to cough from the pepper.

I said to him i didn't think it was the chicken, and then boiled some more of those fresh bay leaves aside in just water and sure enough the same smell was coming out of it.

Im going to have to throw out the chicken because i cooked it with the leaves, which is alot unfortunately. Does anyone know why these bay leaves smell like that? The leaves look nice and green and i picked them from the branch which DH brought. my only thought is that they maybe the other plant which looks like bay leaf plant but it's the poisonous type. Yikes!

Any ideas?

Another possible explanation is that they weren't really bay leaves. They came from a relatively unknown source who may or may not know their herbs, or might think it was a funny prank. With any fresh herb it's a good idea to only use from well-known donors.

Yes, the fresh leaves are stronger, but the ones I've grown in the past always still smelled like bay leaf. With fresh bay leaves, I put them in later in the process and only leave them in for fifteen minutes or so.

Do you live in California? The native bay is related, but not the same as the Mediterranean bay.. Then there is always the chance that, like Judy said, its not bay at all. People often and easily make theses kinds of misidentifications... A little knowledge is a dangerous thing......