I think I was in denial for a while.
I thought it’s because I don’t have time to wash my hair like I did before this adorable high-maintenance person came to take residence in my arms. But he’s so cute. I’ll forgive him for that.
Or because my hair stays in a messy bun (and not one of those designer ones, either, just literally a messy bun) 72 hours a day.
Or it’s that the new kid doesn’t know how to use his hands yet; he likes to grab handfuls of it when I do finally let my hair down.
Maybe it just seems like so much because it’s long–I haven’t had it cut and styled in a year.
Our poor vacuum cleaner. When I scratch my head another piece falls out. I dare not run my hand through from top to bottom. I can’t change my shirt without pulling a stray hair to get stuck on my elbow where I can’t reach. It taunts me.
I knew it was really happening when I was washing my hair and felt what was surely a giant Amazon spider slide down my leg, and I nearly jumped out of the shower in a panic.
Nope, just a huge clump of hair.
Now it’s time to clean the drain with needle-nose pliers, because it’s not draining. Yep, it’s real. It’s my hair clogging the shower drain.
Post partum hair loss is real.
It’s called alopecia.
I should throw that around if I want somebody to feel sorry for me. “There’s nothing I can do. I have alopecia.”
I’m pretty sure this balding spot front and center will have to grow back. If not…
No, it has to grow back. Granted, it will grow in as a million little untrained baby hairs all around my face and turn into a frazzled aura in the humidity we have in the blessed South 89% of the year.
And it will grow back gray, because I’m well past that “Advanced Maternal Age” they talk about when you show up at the OB’s office over the ripe old age of 30. I was 30 when I had my 6 year old.
I remember losing some hair with my other two pregnancies. But it wasn’t this dramatic.
As if there weren’t enough weird things going on to make us self-conscious through pregnancy and delivery and the months after.
But it’s science.
Apparently normal hair loss is around 100 hairs per day. So when we’re washing, styling, and flipping our lovely locks, we lose a bunch of hair. But because of the glorious pregnancy hormones, particularly progesterone, our scalps hang on and don’t let go of our hair for a few months. Then the baby comes. Pow!
Then our heads freak out, realizing there’s too much hair and dumps it all out at once. We can easily lose 200 hairs a day for a few months after delivering that kiddo.
But like a good reforestation program, when you lose hair, more grows in its place. It’s technically, medically, only alopecia if your head doesn’t get with this program.
That messy bun/ponytail/get-my-hair-out-of-my-face-and-baby’s-hands/I-haven’t-washed-it-in-5-days updo needs to be replaced with something that is an actual style, I think.
But something easy. There’s a reason it’s called a “mom-bun.” That reason is, moms don’t always have time to “style” their hair. Or go keep up a haircut that gets wonky if neglected for 26 weeks at a time.
And I know myself. If I don’t make a priority of having an actual hair style, I’m not going to manage to keep up hiding the gray that is naturally highlighting my hair. Thank goodness it’s actually one of the trendy things these days to have gray highlights or a whole head of silver. Who knew I was on the cutting edge of fashion? I just thought I was lazy!
>Hopefully before the end of the month (or at least before school has been in session for more than a month? Let’s be realistic), I’ll know what I’m doing with this thinning, graying, happily messy head of hair.
And maybe the shower drain will have a break soon.