This is your brain. This is your brain on HCG

It’s amazing what hormones can do to a person. I always kinda thought “pregnancy brain” was a cop-out for basically being a smug pregnant person who can’t think beyond anything gestational-related.


For a reference please go YouTube “Pregnant Women are Smug” it’s hysterical, and a shining example of what I didn’t want to turn into when I became pregnant.

Now that I am six months into the crazy whirlwind that is being pregnant, I fully take back all judgment I previously had against pregnancy brain and for underestimating the effects of HCG on the human brain.

Several weeks ago (when, I can’t remember) I was deep in the throes of a work project (what, I can’t remember) when my cell phone rang and Big Sister’s face and name popped up on the screen. As I was currently too busy to chat, I let the call go to voicemail and decided I’d call back in a few minutes.

A short five minutes later, work crisis averted, I picked up my phone and dialed my voicemail to listen to Big Sister’s message.

Lost in the message, I began to ask all the pertinent questions you would ask and responses you would provide during a phone conversation.

I asked how her day was, and she responded with a story of Baby E giving her a bloody nose by poking her finger too hard up big sister’s nose.

I responded that we probably needed to put a stop to Baby E exploring our noses and teeth (things which she hadn’t yet discovered on her own face) due to the risk of injury.

I found it slightly weird when Big Sister repeated basically verbatim what I had just said, but figured she was just repeating me as an affirmation that she had heard me.

I asked if she was ok and how long the bleeding lasted, and Big Sister talked over me with a different story of what Baby E had done that day. I thought that was slightly rude, but Big Sister was on a roll talking so I sat back and listened.

At the next pause, I asked another benign question that escapes me now, but was pertinent at the time. Again, Big Sister steamrolled right over me and prattled on about something completely off topic to what it was I had asked about.

By now I was pretty miffed that she basically called just to talk over me and irritated of my assumed role of having to sit back and listen and not actively participate in the conversation.

Just as I was about to jump in and be snotty about not letting me talk, Big Sister said “Ok well, anyways I just called to see how you were, call me back when you can.”

I was dumfounded. What the hell just happened??

And then there it was. “Beeeeeep. You have no new messages.”

I had been talking to a voice mail.

Seriously, HCG is a bitch, man.

(Sidenote- must clean up mouth before baby comes…. ‘Bitch’ is going to have to stop being a post script to all of my statements at home :/)