Hair loss low

Let me tell you a little story about hair loss.

Two months postpartum I stood up on one of my best friends wedding. Here I was sitting in the hair dresser's chair looking into the mirror and talking to the stylist about what I would like my hair to look like when she commented about how beautiful and thick my hair was. I proceeded to tell her my life story, cuz that is what you do to hair dressers, about how I just had a child and that through my pregnancy my hair has become as healthy and as thick as horse hair. I actually started lamenting that it was annoying me because it was TOO healthy. I said that I couldn't do anything with it due to it being so heavy and shiny and it would no longer hold a curl.

She asked me if I started experiencing any hair loss and I gave her a puzzled look. Hair loss? What is she talking about? I told her no that I have not experienced any hair loss and that I have never heard about this unfortunate post pregnancy circumstance. She began to tell me how many woman find themselves loosing a ton of hair after they give birth and that I may be one of the lucky ones who will not experience this. I nodded my head in agreement and said how I hoped that this was true while in my head I was calling this woman who has never given birth and has no idea what she is talking about a complete idiot.

Then month three hit. When showering I started to notice a few random strands of hair in my hands after washing my hair. I thought to myself... maybe this chick was not as dumb as I originally thought. Then I starting noticing hair on our bathroom floor. Then in G's crib. Then on my and G's clothes. It was everywhere. And like finding hair all over the place isn't nasty enough I began finding it in G's diaper . Fuck.

Oh, karma came back to bite me in the ass cuz I officially hit my hair loss low. After a recent shower where I washed my hair I found a rats nest in my butt crack. No joke. A handful of nasty clumped up newly washed hair traveled down my back and made a home in my butt crack. I wanted to gag and die. I officially hit my hair loss low.

God or whomever must have been a comedian. To give a pregnant woman thick beautiful horse hair when while expecting then he/she takes that away and some. Like I didn't already feel self conscious about my postpartum body I have to be suffering from hair loss worse than The Husband. Here's to hoping that I have some hair left at month five.

The unspoken truth

Not every mother automatically feels that overwhelming bond with their child.  I know I didn't.  ::phew::  I said it.  I cannot describe the guilt you feel when you are holding this brand spanking new baby in your arms and you are waiting and waiting for this overwhelming bond btw you and your newborn child.  Then you finally realize that its just not going to happen.   You cannot help but think to yourself what the heck is wrong with you?  You are supposed to have this feeling of a lioness watching over her baby cub.  You are supposed to have this magical bond the moment they drop that precious miracle into your arms.  If not then, then the first time you breast feed your child.  You are told how it's sooo beautiful and such a bonding experience.   At least that is what every one told me was supposed to happen.  Bullshit.  

It does not happen to all mothers and to those that share my experience most keep quite about it.  This goes against every thing you hear about bearing a child.  Sure I felt love for this human that I brought into this world, but she was like an alien to me.  The experience was alien to me. I was there but really, I was not.

 

I felt like WWIII took place in my vagina, I had a little person who was tearing my nipples off every three hours, and do not even get me started on the lack of sleep.  Oh, the lack of sleep!  You think you are prepared for this but there is no way you ever really truly are.  The things your hormones do to you after you birth a child is crazy.  The best way for me to describe it was like you are going through menopause.  This includes crying for no reason, shivering with cold after finding yourself in a pool of sweat,  sleeping only a total of 2 hours in a 24 hour period.  The best way to describe the first two weeks was that I was in survival mode.  

I resented my daughter every time she cried. How horrible is that!?!  It meant that I had to wake up from the precious couple hours of sleep I was enjoying to feed her.  Feeding her meant I had to pull down my nursing bra (pads too!) with painfully engorged leaking boobs the size of cantaloupes with cracked raw and bleeding nipples to feed her.  I resented her for the fact that my husband had to sleep on the couch while I was in our bed just so he could get 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep so he could function at work the next day.

In confidence, I only told a few people of these feelings.  I did not want to be a freak of nature.  I did not want people to think that I did not love my child because I did! I swear!  They all told me this was okay.  This was normal.  I could not help but keep thinking , if this was okay and normal why have I never heard of anyone else going through this? 

This resentment and lack of a bond lasted for a solid month and a half.  Then one day.... it got better. Just like that.  Like someone hit a light switch.  Maybe it was her first smile, maybe it was that things clicked with breast feeding, or maybe it was that my hormones balanced themselves out.  Heck, it could have been all of the above combined.  I did not care what it was.  I was grateful.  Each day that passed I fell more and more in love with my little girl.  A little seed within me grew and I felt with each passing day that she was more a part of me or I a part of her.  

I now know what all those other mothers were talking about.  That gut wrenching I will do anything for this child nobody better lay a finger on her if she hurts I hurt feeling.  I get it now.  And one day my little girl may become a mommy and if that day comes I will tell her the truth. My truth.  I will let her know that if she ever feels the way I felt it's okay.  She is not alone.  Mommy understands and Mommy promises it will get better.  Much much better.