How pregnancy changed my brain (I think).

Today I made the following Google search: “does a woman’s brain change after pregnancy”.

During my pregnancy, I found it hard to concentrate. That made sense to me. I think the internet explained it in a way that a lot of your blood is now not going to your brain anymore, but to making the baby. Hence, making it more complicated to think, etc. That made a lot of sense to me. I also expected that I would kind of ‘get my brain back’ after giving birth. But, maybe not to everyone’s surprise, it took a while. After birth I experienced the ‘mommy brain’, basically I still forgot everything all the time. I attributed it to a lack of sleep and it all still kind of made sense that, you know, I couldn’t really think properly.

Now it’s been more than six months and I have returned to work. It turns out: I just cannot keep up. Where I used to be able to manage a lot of different projects and tasks at the same time, all parallel in my brain, I now find that three different tasks creates a little overload and shortcircuit and I basically do nothing. I scroll through the internet, try to find something – some distraction, or just stare out of the window. I struggle. I wonder if I have always been like this, or if it actually got worse. I wonder if it is going to stay like this or if I will feel more capable again in the future.

My google search showed that indeed, women’s brains change structurally after having a child and that those changes can last up to six years after birth, or even life-long. So .. I guess my brain did change, and I guess it is normal – more or less – that I feel like I cannot think properly. Does that make it better? It actually doesn’t, I just kind of wish I was back at my pre-pregnancy brainspeed, but at the same time, my brain must have changed for a reason. Making space for all those motherly instincts, for feeling empathetic with a crying baby, and increasing my survival capabilities.

Hopefully, I will soon get used to my new brain, and be back to speed. Or maybe I will learn to not try to do ten things at once, but just move from one to the next. Maybe my new brain will force me to slow down, and maybe that’s a good thing.