Pregnancy Brain

Charla1224 · February 2016

(I know we've talked about this before but that was in September)

I've got it bad. Feels more like pregnancy dementia then simple forgetfulness. I thought I had an OB appointment today. Scheduled off work for 2 hours only to get there and learn that my appointment is tomorrow. A week ago I missed my dentist appointment after work and I told my husband before leaving that morning that I had it scheduled. Add icing to the cake... My car was parked next to my husbands car. I've been driving his for a month now but I proceeded to walk towards my old one and become frustrated that the remote unlock wouldn't work. Once I hit the alarm in frustration I realized the keys I had went to the car behind me.

Seriously though. I'm a very bright, educated woman. I've always taken pride in that but lately I've felt dumb. Is this normal? Is there a threshold between pregnancy brain and something more that I should be aware of? STMs please tell me this goes away.

AmmyBelle · February 2016

I feel the same way. I bought paper towels on Sunday. On Tuesday I called my SO and told him to get paper towels. He said "You bought them already." And I said "No I didn't, I haven't had time to buy them." and he came home and pulled them out of the closet and left them at the front door for me to find when I got home (he works three blocks from home). And when I saw them, I was like "Oh yeah! I bought these at Target on Sunday!" ... sigh.

On the plus side, your brain is just getting bigger and more complex, so yay! This period of short term memory loss sucks, but apparently it's to be expected, and I don't think it's anything to worry about, despite being annoying as hell.

JessicaB0627 · February 2016

Unfortunately, pregnancy brain tends to turn into mom brain once the baby is here!

YouGoGlenCoco31 · February 2016

I'm so glad it's not just me. I am so nervous about forgetting something important at work -- I have reminders set for my reminders.

gamommyx3 · February 2016

Last night I needed my peeler which was in the dishwasher. I walked right by the dishwasher, opened the fridge, forgot what I wanted in the fridge (probably because it was actually in the dishwasher) and spent several minutes staring into the fridge wondering what I was doing there.

LadySamLady · February 2016

It is getting so bad. I used to be great at keeping my to do list in my head but now I have to write everything down before it's lost forever. I feel like I don't even know what I don't know anymore. My coworker recently asked me about something we talked about last week and I don't remember having the conversation at all.

proudparent2b · February 2016

I've had a few memory issues/slips as well. The most recent was almost putting the milk in the cabinet with the glasses.

Nothing super major (yet) though.

JennyS86 · February 2016

Last pregnancy, I was working as a nurse, so I worked 3 -12hr shifts that were different each week. I showed up for the night shift one night when I wasn't scheduled! I had never done that in 4yrs of working there. I also left my wallet at the dentist.

I think it got better after pregnancy, but yes, mom brain is a thing too.

This time around, I couldn't find my wallet in my diaper bag...but turns out it was in my purse. I could NOT figure out how it got there! (it was me, the day before).

I'm waiting to really screw something up this pregnancy...

mrstmoose · February 2016

My H's favorite is when he came home to find the bread in the fridge and my phone in the pantry.

And my boss is used to me forgetting things at this point. I think she's given up at this point.

Charla1224 · February 2016

You all don't know how much you are comforting me (and scaring me @JessicaB0627 lol) I'm also afraid of my memory lapses effecting my work. Last week during a professional development presentation I was giving I forgot my point mid sentence. Everyone thought it was funny but I couldn't help feeling like the joke.

Charissadeats · February 2016

I wrote off a toaster and a food processor today whilst trying to be proactive and making healthy soup for us. The toaster wasn't even part of the soup making process - it just got in the way.

vinerie · February 2016

I generally don't feel as sharp during my lectures. Today I felt really off. I couldn't grab certain words.

kbrands7 · February 2016

I've been bad with keys lately. Yesterday, I spent more time than I'm proud of trying to unlock my classroom with my house keys. Today, I accidentally took DH's truck keys instead of my house keys because they both have the grocery card tag on them. Thankfully, we have back-up keys so he was able to still drive his truck to work.
And yes, sleep deprivation-brain/hormone crash brain was so much worse for me.

Edited because I used a phrase that definitely shows I've spent the day with teenagers...it didn't read well once I looked at it.

AmmyBelle · February 2016

@vinerie - OMG yes! Searching my brain for words has become a mission. I'm a polygot, so if this ever happened in the past, I'd substitute the same word in a different language which would usually trigger me to remember the english word I wanted, but now I can't think of the word in ANY of the 5 languages I know, and it's driving me nuts!

balamama · February 2016

Pregnancy dementia is a really good way to describe what I'm also feeling, @Charla1224. I can't think of words, I can't remember past conversations or whether I did something at work... it's concerning. And now I'm really freaked out about mom brain.

kbrands7 · February 2016

@vinerie and @ladysamlady Yes, and yes! I am/was generally a verbal-person: I'm talented with remembering exact snippets of conversation and with having a flexible and (?) adequate? vocabulary. (It's happening right now!) If I intend to remember something now that has been told to me, I need to repeat it in my head at least three times or write it down, and I am finding that my word choices are dumbed-down as well because I can't think of the most precise word for the moment as easily-- and especially in front of students, at a certain point, you just need to say something because waiting on your brain for even 5 seconds feels like an eternity.

Also, Google calendar and gps grocery push-reminders have saved my sanity.

kp90 · February 2016

Last night laying in bed talking to SO I forgot what I was about to tell him when it was JUST about to come out. It was super frustrating... I still don't know what I was going to tell him... sigh.

nerdymama15 · February 2016

I know I have pregnancy brain; I know I have done stupid/funny stuff b/c of it; however, I cannot at this time remember it. lol

LadySamLady · February 2016

I could not remember the word "dinner" last night. I kept saying "I need....lunch? breakfast? uhhhh ..." until H helped me out.

Knottie1433777995 · February 2016

I went to Chase bank although my account is at Wells Fargo, and it took the teller 10 minutes of explaining it to me before I realized I was at the wrong bank.

kbrands7 · February 2016

LadySamLady said:

I could not remember the word "dinner" last night. I kept saying "I need....lunch? breakfast? uhhhh ..." until H helped me out.

Lol. I've done this so much that I've just started asking DH and DS if they're ready for food...it covers all of the bases.

kbrands7 · February 2016

I have to say, the worst pregnancy brain story I think I've heard came out of my last BMB-- so thankful it wasn't mine, and I feel bad for the person who did it. She said that she opened the garage door, got in her car and started it, then closed the garage door, watched it go down in the rear-view mirror all the while thinking yes, this is how this works, I'm definitely doing things in the right order, and then backed her car into/through the garage door. Yikes.

tripledaggerWed95976 · February 2016

I haven't had it too bad up until now, but my short term memory is definitely starting to fail me a bit. Perfect example is an interaction with a woman from my yoga class this morning:

her: when are you due?
me: may 15th
her: may is a great month, my birthday is in May
me: oh cool, what day?
her: the 23rd
me: cool, I'm due the 15th

i seriously had already forgotten that not 20 seconds ago I had just told her my due date

JessicaB0627 · February 2016

kbrands7 said:

I have to say, the worst pregnancy brain story I think I've heard came out of my last BMB-- so thankful it wasn't mine, and I feel bad for the person who did it. She said that she opened the garage door, got in her car and started it, then closed the garage door, watched it go down in the rear-view mirror all the while thinking yes, this is how this works, I'm definitely doing things in the right order, and then backed her car into/through the garage door. Yikes.

That is hilarious!!

I've definitely had issues with my car this pregnancy. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried to either turn my car off and get out without ever putting it in park, or try to get in my car and put it in drive without ever turning it on.

LadySamLady · February 2016

JessicaB0627 said:

kbrands7 said:

I have to say, the worst pregnancy brain story I think I've heard came out of my last BMB-- so thankful it wasn't mine, and I feel bad for the person who did it. She said that she opened the garage door, got in her car and started it, then closed the garage door, watched it go down in the rear-view mirror all the while thinking yes, this is how this works, I'm definitely doing things in the right order, and then backed her car into/through the garage door. Yikes.

That is hilarious!!

I've definitely had issues with my car this pregnancy. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried to either turn my car off and get out without ever putting it in park, or try to get in my car and put it in drive without ever turning it on.

This is really embarrassing and my pregnant brain forgot until this very moment...

I recently sat on the toilet and peed with my underwear still on. I'm pretty sure I thought it felt odd but I definitely didn't realize my mistake until I tried to wipe.

edited because typo

JessicaB0627 · February 2016

@LadySamLady I hope you were home!

LadySamLady · February 2016

ahaaha @JessicaB0627 I was home! Thank goodness!!

balamama · February 2016

My worst one to date (that I finally just remembered) was that I had just started to cross the street on a green light and a car in the furthest lane ran the light. I thought to myself "oh, be careful, you don't have the right of way," turned back, waited for the green light to change to red, then started to cross the street before I remembered that, no, green means go, red means stop. Kindergarten level stuff.

JoMunson · February 2016

I told my students that my brain was shrinking so it could re-grow as a mom brain and "how cool is it that your moms' brains literally changed for you!"
Then I almost forgot to send home homework. Yikes!

amberraysofdawn · February 2016

My normal brain is so scatterbrained most of the time - I have trouble remembering words or finding things that are in front of my face on a regular basis - but pregnancy is so bringing this out of me even more so than usual.

The worst thing that has happened so far was last weekend. I woke up feeling pretty decent for once, so I got dressed, straightened my hair, even put on a little makeup, and took myself to lunch. Then went shopping so I could pick up a last minute birthday gift for my dad and a Valentine's one for my husband, and ran some errands just because I could. I was sooooo proud of myself, right up until I got home and realized my house keys were still in the house and that my husband was already on his way to work. I hauled myself and all the bags I had just carried to the door back into the car and drove the 45 minutes to get to his office. I needed to pee before I left, but I was determined to wait until I got there instead of stopping at a public place somewhere on the way...and halfway through there's this huge construction zone and the road was uneven and bouncy and oh God it just made everything worse and I swear I caught every damn red light. If that wasn't the worst 45 minutes of my entire life, it came pretty close, y'all. Thankfully, I made it juuuust in time and got my husband's house key and everything was okay.

Until I got home and all the way to the front door and realized that I'd left the keys in the car. And that it had locked automatically behind me.

arj14 · February 2016

Yes. Pretty much this whole week it's been hitting me. One of my jobs is in an elementary school library, in a school of about 700 students. Usually I'm pretty excellent with students names and which class they belong to, but not this week. It's just been a mess.

So far the only really bad thing I did was while driving and I came to a red light at an intersection I go through all the time. For some reason, instead of stopping completely, I just looked both ways and took my turn. I realized my mistake about halfway through the intersection, and DH was completely flabbergasted.

AnastasiaBeaverhausen09 · February 2016

Earlier today I was IMing someone at work and was trying to type #pregnantproblems. Except I kept hitting the quotation mark instead of hashtag. And I was looking down at my keyboard thinking WTF I am pressing hashtag but a quotation mark is popping up! For a second I thought maybe I accidentally created a shortcut. It took me a solid minute or two to realize that " is not #. My reaction:

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