26 weeks - The Pregnancy Brain

Forget-me-nots

Pregnancy brain - a continuous, progressive condition in which you forget what you were thinking five seconds ago. May result in awkward pauses in conversations and poor hygiene. The only known cure is giving birth.

I forgot to put on deodorant this morning. And I did not even realize this until lunch time. This is what I call pregnancy brain.

I have to say that second trimester has been pretty great to me, I definitely lucked out. After the nausea went away, all the good stuff kicked in, sometimes literally. Like feeling the baby kick and having more energy. There is only one part of the second trimester that hasn't been kind to me, and it's affecting my brain.

When I first read about pregnancy brain in my book, it was described as a feeling of absentmindedness. This sounded so innocuous that I mostly dismissed it. As it turned out, though, "absentmindedness" is a severe understatement, at least in my case.

It started out subtly enough. I would find myself forgetting things I did several weeks before. No big deal, I thought, sometimes I forget what I had for dinner last night, even when I'm not pregnant. But as a precaution, I started writing things down at work, creating to-do lists to make sure I didn't forget to finish something important.

This was several months ago, and my memory has been deteriorating ever since. Nowadays, I find myself walking from one room to another, only to stop midway because I can't recall where I was going or why I was going there. About 70% of the time, it comes back to me. The rest of the time, I just give up. Conversations are becoming challenging as well. When someone is telling me a story, not only do I forget what I want to say in response, but also, by the time they finish talking, I forget what they just told me.

This scares me shitless. Especially because I have three more months to go. I might forget my name by that point. My only hope is that this "pregnancy brain" condition goes away right after birth.

Comments

  1. Oh wow, this sounds scary. I do hope it will be over soon, and that you will be able to just go through it and flow (it's good that you already developed strategies to help you).
    Take care (and wishing you an easy last 3 months... time does go fast).

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, I hope it will be over soon, too. As for time going fast... I feel like I am living in this dichotomy, where on one hand, it seems that this pregnancy will never end, and on the other hand, I think "holy crap, only 3 months left! we are not ready!" :)

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  2. Maybe this can be MY excuse for being so damn distracted at work lately? Although really I just think I'm just being a bad employee. Ha. I hope for your sake that it gets better soon. Unfortunately, I've heard it gets worse for some women after the baby is born. Is that possible?

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    Replies
    1. This can totally be your excuse. :)

      I really hope it doesn't get worse after the baby is born! Maybe that's just due to the stress of not sleeping enough with a newborn? I talked to my mom about this last night, and she said she had the same symptoms, but they went away about a month after birth. She didn't mention anything about it getting worse, though. So, maybe it's not immediate, but I fully expect to get my brain back after this baby is born.

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