Hey friend,
I canāt write because pregnancy has turned my brain to mush. My brain comprises tangles and ties, gullies and gulches. One thought is entwined with another thought. Itās too hard to extract just one and corral it into coherence on the page.Ā
I canāt write because Iām napping an hour every day. My iron is in a healthy range. I am furious. I wanted a pill or an iron infusion to fix the exhaustion so I could get back to my life. My midwife suggested I look at my schedule. She doesnāt know I already culled it back. I donāt want to learn about weakness and rest and seasons again. I donāt want to learn patience again. I forgot that even a healthy pregnancy is tiring.Ā
Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash
I canāt write because pregnancy is rapidly expanding and encroaching on my calendar. It is taking all my energy to remember to take prenatal supplements, to do the stretches for my painful hips, to eat protein, to drink more water, to buy orthotics, to eat more fibre, to get a blood test, to book an ultrasound, a GP appointment, a midwife appointment, or a physio appointment.
I canāt write because Iām using the dregs of my brain cells to play Calendar Tetris. I ask, āHow can I get to this appointment?ā amongst work, parenting, school run, running a womenās bible study, Saturday Family Bible study, coordinating a ministry, food shopping, keeping my household in a presentable state, and trying to have a conversation with my husband. AusKick is coming.Ā
I canāt write because I feel guilty for working so hard at something that is not paid work. Writing makes me feel like myself. I love it. But sometimes I feel guilty for putting it on the calendar.Ā
I canāt write because I have to write a report for work and today is the only day free to write it.Ā
I canāt write because Iām scared Iām annoying people by writing so much. Iāve started to notice a churn in my subscribers, people unsubscribing and others subscribing. I donāt know what to do with this.Ā
I canāt write because we donāt have any fruit.Ā
I canāt write because I feel ashamed that I write a lot. I worry there is something wrong with me, like other women must be attending to motherly responsibilities that I forgot.Ā
I canāt write because I was caught up reading on Substack.Ā
I canāt write because I havenāt been to the ocean in two weeks thanks to a rainy Sunday and a blistering hot Sunday. Itās surprising how helpful being out in nature is to creativity.Ā
I canāt write because Iām scared Iāll run out of words. That I will press the dopamine button too many times and my brain will say, āWeāre done here.āĀ
I canāt write because Iāve been sick with a cold and all I can do in pregnancy is water, Panadol, rest, and repeat.Ā
I canāt write because I am scared I will lose words in postpartum and everyone will unsubscribe. I know postpartum is a seasonābut itās a brutal one. Iām scared I wonāt be able to carve out time to write. But writing makes me feel like me.Ā
Thanks
for the prompt. Check out ā take on it here.ĀRelated: Iām Tired of Learning Patience, I Want to Learn Something New, The Caterpillar Flail, and Iām Throwing a Pity Party (Only Iām Invited).
I donāt know if this is helpful, but Iāve found writing in pregnancy to be so difficult! I was so frustrated by it this last time that I started researching the brain changes of pregnancy and matrescence. What I found was that your grey matter shrinks during pregnancy, and then it grows again postpartum (along with your amygdala getting bigger (hello anxiety) š) but the emphasis of which neural pathways are developed is different and geared heavily towards pro-social and survival behaviors. In rat studies, the same neural pathways in the brain light up when they smell their baby as when theyāre given cocaine. That made me laugh ā Godās design to ensure that these babies survive is pretty spectacular (although our current culture is not very well suited to some of the adaptations). It really helped me to know that my brain actually was under construction and it wasnāt just my imagination. Itāll come back! Trust that good groundwork is being laid ā¤ļø
Back when I was in my childbearing years, I was not trying to write more than a personal journal, and that was never a daily thing. But after a few pregnancies I began to notice a pattern, which continued through five of them: I rarely wrote a word in the journal when I was pregnant. This was curious to me, and over the years as I've wondered about it, I think it has something to do with creativity. I was unconsciously but holistically completely fulfilled and happy, when all of me body and soul was engaged in making a new human being. I didn't need the outlet of creating sentences or working through my thoughts and feelings with pen and paper.
I can't imagine what my life as a wife and mother would have been like, if I'd had the internet and a computer keyboard with word processor back then. Because of the way our world is now, I don't know if my experience will contribute anything to your understanding of your own situation, you being someone who is already in the habit of writing a lot. But instead of thinking of your brain as mush, you might consider that your brain -- as another organ of your body and not the whole of you -- is just taking a back seat to other organs for a time. God bless your family and give you peace <3