Residual Pregnancy Brain

Dear Mail Person, 

Thank you for not yelling at me for not getting my mail for over two weeks. (Yes, I have had a mail lady actually bring my mail to my door and yell at me for not emptying my mailbox often enough.)  I simply keep forgetting to walk across the street and get it.  

Sincerely, 

Mailbox number 4, aka the always full one.  

I finally got my mail today, after carrying the key in my pocket half of the day to remind me, I felt something in my pocket hours later to see what was in there and remembered!  It's comical and frustrating all at the same time, but honestly I am ready to feel like a functioning intelligent human being again.  I have never had pregnancy brain lapse into postpartum quite this long.  Or (now this could really be it) perhaps, my fog has been constant for the past twelve years and has just gotten progressively worse with each baby.  

I was reading some online tips from Fit Pregnancy about the fog that seems to be lingering, and they said it can last up to a year.  A YEAR!  I can't imagine continuing in this dumbfounded, forgetful, mentally and physically exhausted state for that long.  I get that I am not getting enough sleep, I get that I am older now (I don't want to be older), I get that I have six boys and that besides one of them taking the majority of my time with breast feeding and poopy diapers and the sweetest snuggles ever, I also have to cook, clean, do laundry, do homework, buy food, be a taxi driver, pay bills, exercise, entertain, did I mention laundry, and more; however, I don't think that feeling foggy and sometimes just plain dumb is really fair at all.

You know how you sometimes hear that baby number three is the hardest recovery and/or adjustment.  Well, perhaps its because most people just don't have six kids anymore, but for me baby number six has been baby number three times way more than two in the recovery and adjustment department.  I had a neighbor tell me that her daughter took three years to feel normal again, mentally and physically, after she had her twins #5 and #6 in line.  Let me repeat, three years.  Whoa!  Please, I'll take a year or less!  I am ready now to function both mentally and physically.  I am glad that I am older and wiser in many ways however, I still have my very very low moments.  I get overwhelmed much earlier in the day.  I feel done with the many messes and fits that come with littles on almost a daily basis.  Laundry may even cause me rage and tears from time to time.  But, I feel like I appreciate it all a little bit more.  I feel like it takes me longer to get to yelling than it once did.  I feel like despite my fog, I pay more quality attention to my boys, at least I try.      

I did also read that your actual I.Q. is not affected, which is comforting, because there are days when I can barely string a coherent sentence together due to forgetting basic words such as remote control, or lunchbox.  After searching the internet, and therefore finding that it is fact, I did feel very validated that pregnancy brain is an actual thing.  The fact that our hormones are on overkill and our sleep schedules erratic actually causes this state of complete forgetfulness.  So until all the hormones simmer down, and the little babe decides to sleep through the night, I guess I will just try to remember that when I forget the boiling water on the stove for half an hour, or re-wash the same load of laundry three times, or when I pace from room to room trying to remember what in the world I was doing, or when I can't remember what I was saying mid-sentence, or when I lose nearly every trivia game to my husband over and over again that someday I will actually feel like an intelligent adult again. 

p.s. I may have already written about this very subject, but truly if I did, I forgot :)