My daughter often hollers this throughout the house when I’m doing chores and she’s playing with her toys. It’s a quick little check to make sure I’m still around. These days I feel as though I need my very own reality check. Nissa, where are you? My brain seems to be devoid of all intellect. I can hardly string a sentence together and my thoughts rarely go past, “Honey, what do you want for dinner?” Yes, I have a severe case of BABY- BRAIN.

Studies show that a woman’s brain actually takes a mental leap while pregnant and becomes “supercharged” post birth, which is supposedly to help the mother rear the infant. They tested over 2500 women, some pregnant/some not, who had similar results after testing, suggesting that there is no change to a woman’s brain during pregnancy. So is baby-brain bullshit? Unlike all of my midnight snacking, I find this fact hard to swallow. There are moments when I can’t remember a simple word while stringing together a sentence. I think I’m making an intelligent argument and wouldn’t you know, I can’t find the word for “towel.” I’ll snap my fingers and say, “What’s that thing you dry yourself with after you shower?”

As I head into my last 10 weeks of pregnancy I have to laugh at all of it. I am a former version of myself! Mommy, where are you?