pregnancy brain

So, a while back, a friend asked me if I had encountered what many call “pregnancy brain”. I really thought that so far I had escaped it. Oh, sure, there were some days I felt less sharp than others, but those were days when I really hadn’t been able to sleep much, or, in the first trimester when I couldn’t get ENOUGH sleep so I always felt sleep deprived. I did have days where it was hard to concentrate at work, but it wasn’t anything major.

However, it now seems as though the so-called “pregnancy brain” has fully kicked in.

I’ll start with the not as funny story first. I had an appointment with my hematologist this morning. I see her every 6 weeks to make sure my levels of Lovenox are still ok, and to check my thyroid. Yesterday, I had a reminder pop up on my Outlook calendar “Appointment with Dr. Etingin tomorrow morning”. I also put a reminder on my iphone and it popped up when I was home last night at 7pm. However, between then and waking up this morning; I totally forgot about it. Didn’t remember until I was in the shower this morning, and realized I had to be out of the house in 5 minutes to make my appointment. Then, once I made it out the door by some miracle, I proceeded to head to the wrong train. I managed to only be 3 minutes late, but it made me feel pretty frazzled this morning.

The silliest thing I’ve done so far though, is in regards to the prenatal classes I signed Ian and I up for. In January, I googled “Mt. Sinai, prenatal classes” and clicked on the first link. It took me to a listing of prenatal classes at Mt. Sinai, and I saw that they were offering a 5 week course called “preparing for multiples”. Perfect! Over the 5 weeks (3 hour classes in the evening) they covered:

• preparing for birth
• comfort measures and pain management
• vaginal and c-section birth
• breastfeeding multiples
• getting organized at home

All for the bargain price of $200! Total for both of us! I was stoked and signed us up immediately. I got a confirmation, and was so pleased that we had such a perfectly tailored, comprehensive class.

Then yesterday, for some reason (even though our class wasn’t supposed to be until May), I decided that I should see exactly where the class was held, which route we should take to get there, and if there were any places nearby to eat dinner beforehand. So, I looked up the address that was on my confirmation letter: 600 University Avenue. Hmm. I had never heard of anything in the city being on University Avenue, but then again, it’s not like I know every street in the city. I typed it in to google maps, and it popped up with something in the Bronx. Ok, well, I know Mt. Sinai doesn’t have any branches in the Bronx. Weird. So, I put in “600 University Avenue, Mt. Sinai”, and this popped up:

Mount Sinai Hospital Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex 600 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Yes, you read that right. Canada. I signed us up for classes in CANADA. Now, you may think “oh, but anyone could make that mistake. You just didn’t notice that the web address was www.mtsinai.on.ca that one time that you were on their page.” Well, that would make sense, only I went on the page a bazillion times to read about it. Never noticed that the web address ended in .on.ca. Then you may think, “Oh, but you just didn’t see that the phone numbers all listed on the site started with “416”- clearly not a New York area code. If you’d seen a phone number listed, you would have figured it out.” WELL, you’d think so, but no, I actually CALLED the number once to ask a question. Not even thinking about the fact that it’s not a NY area code. Then you may think “Well, you must not have looked at your debit card statement, because if you had, you would have realized that you were charged more than $200 because of the exchange rate.” No, I saw it, and thought “Oh, it must be taxes or something.” But somehow I didn’t see that it also said “(EXCHG RTE)” on my statement next to the charge.

So, there you go. Now I have to get a refund, and find some classes for us to take here. From what I can see, Mt. Sinai in New York offers nothing like their Canadian counterpart. First of all, we’ll have to take several classes separately. Second of all, it’s going to end up being over twice as much as the Canadian classes. And third of all, none of the classes will be geared towards twins.

What have I learned? Pregnancy brain is sure real. I read about it today, and apparently the combination of lack of sleep (check), raging hormones (check), and being distracted by the thought of the growing beings inside of you (check, check)- can give you what many call “Pregnancy Brain”. And clearly, since I can’t tell New York from Ontario, I’ve got a major case of it.

I’m super bummed that we won’t get our awesome class for the awesome price, but I sure am glad I checked now instead of the night before! Guess I’ll need to start really focusing hard on things and make lots of lists and reminders. I have a feeling I haven’t seen the last of you, pregnancy brain.


~M

*photo found here