Memory and child birth, what happens?

Nothing prepares you for the arrival of your Newborn more than the Newborn itself. To be honest, amongst the leaking breasts, stinging stitches, black sticky tar like 1st nappies, tiny fiddly outfits and array of flowers from visitors I felt like I’d been hit by a truck!

Literelly, as if a truck had come along and smacked me so hard I’d forgotten who I was. I’d not just forgotten who I was but I couldn’t even remember what I liked to eat,  nor could I even fathom how to use my own kitchen appliances when I got home from hospital.

The only way I can describe it, is like a blanket of mind blurring magic dust had been sprinkled over me in labour.  People would ask me relentless questions about the birth and I’d go blank and burst into tears. Often not knowing why I was crying and then crying because I felt frustrated.  I’d get to the top of the stairs with great difficulty after forceps and forget why I had ventured upstairs and then obviously cry again.  I’d begun to put the milk in the cupboard and spend an entire afternoon looking for it. Attempting a shower with constant symptoms of mental health whilst I thought I heard my baby crying, covered in soap suds I’d be hopping onto the landing to check.

I named this post natal mind ‘baby brain’ or ‘mummy fog’ but it never got easier as the weeks went on.

I’d be sat in a cafe chatting away and poof I’d forget what I was saying just like that. I could arrange a play date with a mum at school and not intentionally forget to turn up.

Overnight, I had lost my memory but knowone told me about this part of motherhood. Was gaining stretch marks, sore breasts, swollen, stitched and a grazed vagina not enough? Motherhood had to transform me into an emotional shipwreck with irrational thought patterns and brain fog.

3 years on since my last child and I’m physically much more like my pre birth self, despite the not so purked breasts and tiger stripes that are now turning a less noticeable silver. However my memory, my thoughts, my sanity at which point do I regain my mental dignaity or control?

Why is this not discussed in pregnancy? Why is this subject only something that you realise happens to all mums when your at baby group and mid flow of conversation one of you goes blank. Only then does another mother say “oh it happens to me all the time, I can’t remember one thing to the next”.

Surley I am not alone, surley I am not the only mother walking around in this post birth foggy daze. As I sit watching my children play feeling emensley proud, I look around at other mum’s wondering, do they all feel like me?

Written by Francesca Shaw