Gifted and Talented

Before being pregnant I'd heard about "pregnancy brain," where pregnant women couldn't remember things and were extra forgetful, but I didn't really believe it. Then in January I started forgetting to send emails until over an hour after I said I would, and I'd find myself walking into a room and standing there thinking, "Why did I come in here?" I started using post-it notes at a rapid rate, using up what is usually about a six month supply in a matter of weeks. Even with those experiences, though, I didn't necessarily attribute my forgetfulness to just being pregnant. After all, I was buying and selling a house, coordinating a move, going to the doctor once a week and working full time. That's a lot going on. And I never missed a meeting or appointment. I figured a few extra post-it notes wasn't that significant.

In the last week, however, there is no denying I'm having some serious mental impairment. For one, I showed up for a client meeting without my notebook. Showing up to a meeting without a single piece of paper to write on is a problem when you can't remember what was said in a conversation five minutes ago. But this was even more significant because I don't go ANYWHERE business-related without my notebook. It's probably an even more essential tool than my BlackBerry. I felt like I'd walked into a meeting and suddenly realized I wasn't wearing pants. Luckily my co-worker was there to bail me out with a spare piece of paper.

The most revealing moment of my impairment, however, was Tuesday evening. Tuesday was a big day. I had an ultrasound in the morning where I learned that the baby is doing well and is still head down, and that my visits to this particular doctor were in fact covered by my insurance (I'd gotten statements in the mail just the night before saying that the doctor was out of network and that I had to pay 100% of the costs for the last four visits, which led to a sleepless night envisioning large sums of money bleeding out of our checking account until it was revealed to be a mistake). After the doctor's appointment I had the pseudo-pantsless client meeting, and then I met Joe for a quick dinner before our last baby class where we learned all about c-sections. By the time we got home around 10pm that evening, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was wash my face and go to bed.

Now you couldn't tell from the pictures of our aquarium-like shower, but the shower door can either swing into the shower or out into the room. Pulling the door so it opens out into the room makes sense when you want to turn the water on before stepping in; opening it into the shower makes sense when you're done and don't want the water to drip on the floor. Apparently when I'd gotten out of the shower that morning, I'd never reached back in and pulled the door shut behind me, and it was open into the shower just a bit. I walked over to the shower to get my washcloth, which hangs on a hook just behind the door, but I couldn't reach it because the shower door was open and blocking the hook. Instead of just reaching in, pulling the door past the "closed" position and out into the room, thereby revealing the hook and my washcloth, I tried to push the door further into the shower and reach my arm all the way around the door and behind it to get the washcloth. As I realized that this was impossible, I started wondering why I'd had Joe put the hook for my washcloth in that particular spot when he'd hung the hook last week.

"Oh crap," I thought, "I didn't really think this hook positioning through and now I'm going to have to make Joe move it and he's going to be very annoyed...gosh, I used my washcloth last night and I don't remember having this problem...he even put caulk around the darn hook, and that's going to be a pain in the butt to undo...how the hell did I get to my washcloth before?" I began stepping into the shower--slippers and all--so I could get in, close the door, and finally reach my washcloth, when Joe (who'd been standing at the sink silently watching this drama unfold), said very calmly, "Just pull the door the other way." I stopped mid-step into the shower, looked at my hand pushing on the door handle, pulled it a few inches toward me to test it out, and said, "Oh. Duh."

As I pulled the door open and finally obtained the washcloth, I started giggling at the sheer stupidity of the situation. It was either laugh or cry at (1) my complete inability to remember how the door worked and (2) the fact that I could take time to have a complete conversation with myself and still not figure out how to use the door. When I started giggling Joe looked relieved that I'd chosen that over crying and finally released all the laughter that he had manfully withheld until that point.

Though I couldn't remember how to work the shower door, I immediately remembered this Far Side comic by Gary Larson. This week, this is me: