Pregnancy Ate My Brain
I thought of something when I was posting a comment...
My friend Amie is going to have her baby any minute. She might be in labor right this second, screaming and pushing the baby's head out...Poor girl. I remember when she first told me she was pregnant she said, stoically, "I am going to have a natural birth." I told her that was admirable and then wondered how many contractions it would take for her to beg for the epidural. Don't get me wrong...I know there are people who deliver naturally and I admire them. I am just not remotely one of those people. And I know it.

Anyway, Amie and I were talking about pregnancy and how as a pregnancy progresses you begin to feel as though something is literally eating your brain. It starts will small things. You forget your cell phone when you go to the mall and it happens at a time when your parents are expected for a visit from two hours away...and they get to your house and you forgot to tell your husband they are coming and so he's in the shower singing the Moody Blues and doesn't hear them banging on the door. The memory thing progressively gets worse until you are seven months pregnant and you find yourself standing in the kitchen saying things like, "Did I already eat breakfast? I see dirty pans and egg shells and empty packages of bacon...and the house SMELLS like bacon...but I still feel really hungry so I guess maybe I didn't eat..."

You realize you have experienced the ultimate memory loss when you are in the delivery room and you are having a contraction and you scream to your husband or significant other or whomever, "Why did I f**king decide I needed to have a baby!?? WHY!!!???" And you honestly can't remember why on earth you would put yourself through something like that. All you know is that you must have been insane at the time and so you plead temporary insanity because what else can you do?

So Amie and I came to the realization that there is a reason why pregnancy eats your brain. Over the course of a pregnancy people begin to experience what can be likened to Alzheimer's. As the pregnancy progresses, the memory deficiencies progress as well. Here's the thing: people go through labor and you hear all about it and how much it hurt and how it is the worst pain a human being can possibly endure and you think to yourself, "Um...did you say you wanted a second child?" And see that's the thing! Despite how painful and horrible childbirth can be people actually go ahead and have a second child. Why? Why would they do that? They've had the contractions...they've signed the paper before getting their epidural that says, "...possible permanent paralysis...chronic migraines...may never again have a human face..." and yet, the first baby turns a year old and you hear the words you never thought you'd hear come out of their mouth: "Roger and I are thinking about having baby number two."

[Insert scratching record sound.]

The thing is that once pregnancy has eaten your brain, you never get it back again. The situation is made even worse the first few months of having an infant around the house because not only are you suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's, you also begin to experience symptoms relating to chronic lack of sleep.

Nature tricks women into having more children by forcing them to have a relatively muted memory of pregnancy and the delivery. Yes, we know it hurt. We remember that it hurt. We know that it was the absolute worst pain ever and that the idea of jumping into a vat of boiling oil almost sounds preferable to enduring that kind of pain again, but we can't actually remember the pain. And so we figure that we could go through it again. Because it isn't like we're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of giving birth. How bad could it have been, right?

So yeah...in conclusion...pregnancy eats your brain. And it's permanent.