Pregnancy Brain

There are many gross/amazing/weird things that can happen to your body when pregnant. A dark line marks your belly, your nose gets stuffy (and wide), and you pee all of the time. You also lose your brain. Seriously. JD never believed me on this when I was pregnant with Beatrice. I would forget whatever critical thing he told me to pick up at the grocery store before I even pulled out of the driveway. I would forget plans that we planned for weeks. I would forget to make dinner. I was constantly trying to convince him that forgetfulness in pregnancy is a real thing. He never bought it.

But it is a real thing. It's called pregnancy brain and it plagues many women (and husbands). For the most part, my experience with pregnancy brain has been annoying and frustrating. I hate it when other people tell me things that I said with no recollection of ever having had a conversation in the first place. Forgetting the key ingredient for dinner gets old. But so far, my forgetfulness has never endangered anyone. Until today.

Last night I left the key in the front door. All night. While we slept. Amongst burglars and bad guys and lions and tigers and bears. JD could not find his house key this morning and after looking in the usual places, he woke me up to see where I put it. "Check the kitchen counter." He did. "What about the table in the foyer?" Yep, not there. "Check the front door." Bingo. Apparently, after coming home from dinner last night, I forgot to pull the key out of the lock on the door. Oops. Of course we're all fine. Thank you bad guys for not pillaging us last night.  But this was a big what-the-heck-is-happening-to-my-brain kind of moment for me.

I really don't want to be dangerous to my family. I take precautions for all for all of the possible dangers in life. But are you really responsible for things that you forget you ever did - or didn't do? The good news is that pregnancy brain only lasts for a few months. The bad news however, is that it is replaced with mommy brain. My poor husband better start locking the doors himself at night.