Anyone else loose their brain during/after pregnancy?

[caitlinsmom]

The more kids I have had the more slow I have become. Really I mean this. Most of the time I have a hard time even spelling common words (I'd post an example but it would probably be wrong!) and I feel like I can't formulate a decent conversation to save my life! :) In fact I have almost stopped posting on message boards because I have such a hard time making sense!!

 

Am I the only one who gave away her intelligence for the sake of her offspring? ;)

[Susan in KY]

I'm still looking for mine.:glare:

[flobee76]

I found mine for a bit between our 1st and 2nd children. However, I lost it again after the 2nd was born. My poor 3rd... she must think that her mommy is only good for nursing.

 

That's pretty much it.

 

I rarely post either. I can't put 2 and 2 together. :confused:

[hsm6kids]

Oh good, I'm not the only one who has this problem. I have 6 kids and I'm not sure if it is just exhaustion at this point but I have a real hard time conversating, I say one word but meant to say another, I get three words out and then forget what I was going to say, Don't ask me what their names are LOL and birthdays, I have been working on that ever since the doctor asked if I was sure the child was mine,AH yes, I was there I just can't remember for sure when LOL I have some days that are really bad. I write everything down. I am the queen of lists. Maybe it's just because my mind never stops so it never really rest??? I am not sure.

[Carrie12345]

I over-post when my brain is impaired. The more $#%! you throw at a wall, the greater chance something will stick, right?

 

Carrie- who is baking #5

[Entropymama]

Yes! In fact last week it dawned on my that my kids are so smart because they took my brain.

[SLH in ND]

The more kids I have had the more slow I have become. Really I mean this. Most of the time I have a hard time even spelling common words (I'd post an example but it would probably be wrong!) and I feel like I can't formulate a decent conversation to save my life! :) In fact I have almost stopped posting on message boards because I have such a hard time making sense!!

 

Am I the only one who gave away her intelligence for the sake of her offspring? ;)

 

 

:iagree: I lost a little bit with each of my pregnancies/deliveries. In fact, when dd#3 was born and my oldest was 3.5 yrs. old, I came home from the hospital and told dh I was going to start homeschooling (my p.m. nurse was a homeschooling mom). He laughed and flat out told me I lost my brain while I was in the hospital.

 

Conversations are tough for me, too....and "writing" them are harder than speaking!

 

Sheri :)

Edited July 22, 2010 by SLH in ND
fix a typo

[hsbaby]

Oh yeah, definitely! I think the thing I notice the most is my short term memory loss. No joke. I can be talking and forget mid-sentence what I was going to say. DH thinks it's amusing...me, not so much. If it is any indication of what I will be like in old age then I seriously feel bad for my kids.

[ahousefullofjs]

The more kids I have had the more slow I have become. Really I mean this. Most of the time I have a hard time even spelling common words (I'd post an example but it would probably be wrong!) and I feel like I can't formulate a decent conversation to save my life! :) In fact I have almost stopped posting on message boards because I have such a hard time making sense!!

 

Am I the only one who gave away her intelligence for the sake of her offspring? ;)

 

:iagree:This is so me!

[Dana]

During my pregnancy, my husband asked when something would happen.

 

I responded, "In the.... you know... the thing that comes after summer."

 

"You mean 'fall'?"

 

"Yeah!!!"

 

<sigh>

 

I write anything that I need to remember down now.

And then I lose the list :confused:

[fairfarmhand]

My youngest is 2.5 and for the first time in years, I am neither pregnant, trying to get that way nor nursing. It is getting better.

 

Your brain will come back.

[Classical Country Mama]

I just caught myself putting my cheese slicer in the fridge.

 

:confused: I WANT MY BRAIN BACK. I am quite sure I used to be a competent person who could speak intelligently on at least two or three topics....

[kwickimom]

SIGH. Yes...it actually scares me sometimes how bad my short term memory is...like I dont know if I can do the dictation in WWE2 that I am going to be expecting my DD to do. I think I am going to try it and sharpen my memory.

[LizzyBee]

I have a theory about this. During pregnancy, brain cells migrate to the placenta. And you know where that usually ends up. The garbage. Yep, that's where my brain is. After 3 kids, I've lost A LOT of brain cells.

[LizzyBee]

My youngest is 2.5 and for the first time in years, I am neither pregnant, trying to get that way nor nursing. It is getting better.

 

Your brain will come back.

 

My youngest just turned 9. When can I expect my brain back? :D

[KidsHappen]

Yes, I'd say I lost 1/4 of my brain with each pregnancy so as you can see I now have a deficit of 1/2 of a brain and I ain't getting any better with age. My kids are planning on having me microchipped soon and they rarely let me take the car anymore. :tongue_smilie:

[ereks mom]

Dh & I still laugh about the time I couldn't think of "vacuum cleaner". I asked him to get the "thing" out of the closet. When he wanted to know which "thing" I meant, I stumbled and stuttered for a minute and then said, "The thing that sucks the dirt off the floor." :lol:

[Mothersweets]

I have a theory about this. During pregnancy, brain cells migrate to the placenta. And you know where that usually ends up. The garbage. Yep, that's where my brain is. After 3 kids, I've lost A LOT of brain cells.

 

Why didn't anyone tell me about this up front? I've had 12 children. Your theory explains it all. :)

 

Really, it is comforting to know it isn't just me.

Edited July 22, 2010 by Mothersweets

[Nicole M]

I remember being so confused because I couldn't remember any multi-syllabic words. It was awful. Now I'm so tired, though, I don't even know if the brain came back or not. As me again when the boys are off to college. If you can remember.

[jenn&charles]

Dh & I still laugh about the time I couldn't think of "vacuum cleaner". I asked him to get the "thing" out of the closet. When he wanted to know which "thing" I meant, I stumbled and stuttered for a minute and then said, "The thing that sucks the dirt off the floor." :lol:

 

LOLOLOL :lol:

 

This whole thread is kind of comforting to me. My youngest is 12 and I never did get my brain back.

You know it's bad when you have to figure out how old you are by subtracting the date you were born from the current year. I have done that now like 5+ times. You'd think I could remember how old I am.

 

I've also called my youngest by the dog's name....Gah...I'm turning into my grandma!

[mcconnellboys]

No, LOL, the nurses in my OB's office used to say that with every placenta that drops in the pan, 10 points of IQ go with it.....

[EKS]

Yes--and it's still gone. Or maybe homeschooling did that. I'm not sure, but I do know that I've completely lost it.

[sarawatsonim]

I'm pregnant now and I've always been proud of the fact that I have a great memory and a quick wit/comeback response. Now I consider myself lucky if I can finish a sentence with having huge pauses in the middle while I am trying to remember what I was talking about.

[MamaT]

I have six and lost brain cells with every one (even my dds, who are adopted). I have started telling dh and the kids the same thing over and over, and they just start laughing when I start talking. That's how I know I've already told them. I remember laughing at my mom for that. I can't remember words for simple things sometimes. I take the wrong exit on the interstate ALL the time. I forget which kid I am taking where. :001_smile:

[runmiarun]

Yes! In fact last week it dawned on my that my kids are so smart because they took my brain.

 

:iagree:

 

I like that answer. Can I use it? My brain is too fried to come up with one of my own. I thought I had manage to salvage some it after #1 but then came #2 followed very quickly by #3, when all hope for brain power was lost. Therefore (ha-big word, I'm done for today), #4 must make me certifiable. I think chocolate is the only medicine that will truly solve this problem.

[tricia]

I really think so. I really believe that each time I gave birth part of my brains were sucked out!! And I did it 12 times. So how stupid would that make me now!:lol:

[Kidlit]

You all don't know how much comfort this thread brings me. :grouphug: I really have questioned my sanity/competence at times. :tongue_smilie:

 

I'm definitely showing this one to dh. :001_smile:

[kwickimom]

The more kids I have had the more slow I have become. Really I mean this. Most of the time I have a hard time even spelling common words (I'd post an example but it would probably be wrong!) and I feel like I can't formulate a decent conversation to save my life! :) In fact I have almost stopped posting on message boards because I have such a hard time making sense!!

 

Am I the only one who gave away her intelligence for the sake of her offspring? ;)

 

You spelled "lose" as "loose" in your title :lol::lol::lol: I am totally not pointing this out to be rude at all, I spell EVERYTHING wrong and I type even worse. Almost all of my posts are edited because of typos. I just giggled like crazy when I read it :D

[Dawn in OH]

This is totally normal!

 

Although, with my most recent pregnancy I wasn't as bad as with the other kids. It may just be that after 9 years I've learned to be really proactive about keeping track of things. I've been writing myself notes for years. I keep lists. Many things in our house are labeled.

 

I'm also less sleep deprived with this child than with the others. I'm sure that helps. At long last I have a sleeper! But I have found that I've been making a lot of typos and spelling mistakes. The other day I wrote something with atrocious grammar. My brain had completely shut down on me.

 

Two nights ago before dinner I asked my son to "Put this in the black box that makes food hot". He replied, "The microwave?". "Yeah, that's it!"

[Mommyof4ks]

I am still looking for mine. :glare: I only have 3 kids, and I am afraid if I had more I would simply forget where I left them. *sigh*

[Melinda in VT]

I am still looking for mine. :glare: I only have 3 kids, and I am afraid if I had more I would simply forget where I left them. *sigh*

 

Maybe you did and you have. :D

 

I'm finally starting to feel like some of my brain is coming back, now that my youngest is almost 5, but my kids still tease me about my noun retrieval problem. And names? DH, kids, dog . . . the names are all a jumble.

[LauraGB]

It took me about 2 years to return to being able to think...at all, actually. I figure that's one year for each kid. The worst part about it is that I really didn't know I didn't make any sense and was fairly rude much of the time. But over the years I remember things I said or did (or people like to remind me :glare:) and I cringe just thinking about it. Thankfully my family still accepts me, and the bonus is that they don't expect nearly as much from me by way of nonjudgementalness or politeness as they once did :D.

[Just Robyn]

Well, in the spirit of, um... girl power, I've got to post this article

 

Has Motherhood Fried Your Brain?

 

and some quotes from it:

 

During motherhood, the brain tends to be more "plastic", so that new skills employed during parenthood can re-map the intellect and be useful in all types of life situations. Ellison suggests that fathers and parents who adopt can also expand their gray matter.

 

and

 

Craig Kinsley, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Richmond in Virginia, discovered that new mother rats caught food three times faster than virgin rats — an experiment he refers to as "mom rats kicking virgin butt." These types of studies reinforce the evolutionary theory that it’s essential for mothers to develop an extra edge for her offspring to survive. Even more intriguing is the conclusion that mental advantages developed in mother rats may last up to 24 months — the equivalent of 80 human years. Kinsley and his lab partner Kelly Lambert, neuroscientist and mother of two young children, are the first researchers to proclaim on record that motherhood may actually enhance cerebral power.

 

Emphasis mine. I tend to think that we mom's have so much more to deal with that more things are bound to slip. Like, if I'm trying to balance just 3 boxes I may be able to walk a tightrope and reach the end still carrying them all, but if I'm carrying 15 I'm bound to drop a couple. Despite the 2 I dropped, I'm still carrying 10 more than before. Go me!

Edited July 23, 2010 by crstarlette

[sagira]

I'm 11 weeks pregnant (with my third) and just after enjoying a brief six months of my wit and some of my brilliance returning, I can swear I can feel my brain cells evaporating. I'm reaching.. grasping.. please don't go....! I'll miss you.. I need you..! Nooooooo......!

[KidsHappen]

I didn't even notice the title boo-boo. :lol: I also have the noun retrieval problem. I point and jesture a lot and use lots of descriptive words. I do leave myself lots of notes but I have now found that I find notes in my handwriting that I don't remember writing and I have no clue what they say or mean. :001_huh:

 

I have five years worth of calendars with all kinds of notations (circles, stars, numbers, tally marks, etc.) in them but there is no key explaining what the symbols mean. At one point I thought I had figured it out, circles were paydays (I can verify that) and stars were my periods (I had previously used the cirlce for that because we were always paid on the 1st), numbers were school days and that the tally marks were when we had parent/teacher conferences (and don't I ask me why I need to make notes to remember the last time) but then I noticed that one month that number was way to high too mean that so I am still not sure what that referred to but I used that symbol for a whole year and now I can't remember what it was for. I have tried asking family members who like puzzles and could reasonably be expected to have some clue but they can't make any more sense of it than I can. I really have their curiosity up though. :D Should I ever do anything famous or infamous it will be a really great mystery for someone to solve to explain everything.:tongue_smilie:

[Diane in CO]

Dh & I still laugh about the time I couldn't think of "vacuum cleaner". I asked him to get the "thing" out of the closet. When he wanted to know which "thing" I meant, I stumbled and stuttered for a minute and then said, "The thing that sucks the dirt off the floor." :lol:

 

 

Love it! :D I had several of those moments as well....one of my favorites was "Honey we need to buy a....ummm.. a.. you know thing...the thing you put a baby in ...you know the thing you open up and put a baby in so they can play in it?" DH - "A playpen? " Me - YES!!!! a playpen! :lol:

[gaillardia]

:001_huh::tongue_smilie:Yeah, what she said.

You know what? You will eventually stop having kids but it will still take some time for it to come back. And then you get to start experiencing peri-menopause. :glare:

I like the quote crstarlette left. We can kick, protect and be mother bear fiercely.

I remember the days of not being able to speak in complete sentences.

Hooray for moms!

[Gooblink]

I'd read somewhere that boys inherit their intelligence from their mother.

 

I've always said that it's sucked out during pregnancy. :)

[Guest janainaz]

Well, that's my problem for sure.

[asta]

It's rather simple:

 

When the doc/midwife tells you your placenta has come out and that they are taking it to medical waste, they're lying. It is actually your brain they're incinerating.

 

:auto:

 

 

a

[caitlinsmom]

During my pregnancy, my husband asked when something would happen.

 

I responded, "In the.... you know... the thing that comes after summer."

 

"You mean 'fall'?"

 

"Yeah!!!"

 

<sigh>

 

I write anything that I need to remember down now.

And then I lose the list :confused:

 

This is so me!!! I often cant remember simple words and dh tries so hard not to laugh at me. It really is funny though and I dont blame him.

 

As for writing things down, I have notes ALL OVER the place but half the time I cant remember what they were reminding me to do!

[caitlinsmom]

Maybe you did and you have. :D

 

And names? DH, kids, dog . . . the names are all a jumble.

 

My standard for this one is "Hey everyone look at me. (Point at child) You I need you." :D They all roll their eyes at me and say the name of the person I wanted. I get the weirdest looks in the store from old men. LOL the women all just smile that BTDT look.

[woolybear]

What brain? I have no idea what you're talking about.....:auto:

[laughing lioness]

Sadly I forgot that Bush (Sr.) had been president. My dh ( a psychologist) was about to give me a psych eval. When he realized it was just from being 40 and pg he wailed, "I want my smart wife back!" But he did go to my next doctor's visit and ask if it was going be a permanent condition (being stoopid, I guess).

It's still an on-going joke. When i am particularly ditzy he'll whisper under his breath, "Bush...Bush..."

[laughing lioness]

You spelled "lose" as "loose" in your title :lol::lol::lol: I am totally not pointing this out to be rude at all, I spell EVERYTHING wrong and I type even worse. Almost all of my posts are edited because of typos. I just giggled like crazy when I read it :D

 

I am so ROTFLOL reading this thread. My 19 is beside me laughing but also praying, "dear God, please lm not be this stoopid" :lol::lol::lol:

[Tohru]

I am so ROFL!!! :lol:

 

This is such a comfort. I can barely type, let alone speak out loud without making tons of nonsense. I'd try to come up with good examples and my mind goes completely blank. In fact, I'm editing right now to add that I can't think of anything to add (and to fix grammatical errors). lol!

 

Thanks!

Edited July 24, 2010 by jadedone80

[ElizabethB]

Yes.

 

I regularly say only half-jokingly that I lost half my brain with each child and not all of it came back.

 

Anyway, the more children you have, the more you have to do and the more people you have interrupting you...so even if you started to have a complete thought, you will get interrupted and distracted. This also applies to any task you are trying to do. Moms with 5+ seem to have this problem multiplied, maybe something about the 5th puts you over the edge?

[Kel & the Kids]

I've heard Omega 3's need to be replaced after each pg (for real!), but I keep forgetting to take mine (also for real). I'm glad I'm not alone in this! I am waaaay dumber than I used to be at a lot of things. Somehow though, it's made up for itself in being a lot wiser in a lot of things too.

[Angie in VA]

1. Yes

 

2. It's because brain cells are transferred to the placenta during pregnancy.

 

3. After the baby is born, so is the afterbirth (iow, said placenta.)

 

4. The brain cells are never seen or heard from again.

 

5. I've said this for years. I'm glad to get it in print for all mothers to realize they're not alone!

[Giraffe]

Yes! In fact last week it dawned on my that my kids are so smart because they took my brain.

 

Haven't read all the posts, but this is exactly what I believe. DD took all my brains!! I miss them, and while I'm glad she's so smart, I do wish I could have some of them back.... :001_huh: