I'm losing my mind (and my hair)

Well lets talk about something near and dear to my heart, my hair. In my almost 30 years, we have had a hate/tolerate relationship. The real issue was that I did not realize that my hair was curly until I was about 16. I was just sitting at home watching a stellar episode of Gilmore Girls and on the show it showed someone blowdrying there hair upside down while scrunching it. So my frizzy head thought to myself, "Self, why would anyone do that to their hair? Hell, maybe I should do that to my hair." And BAM! I'll be damned if it wasn't curly all along. So things got a bit better for awhile after that.

That was until I had my first baby...and then about 3 months after he was born my hair started going kamikaze on me and jumping off of my head faster than I could comb it.  So, I really wasn't prepared for this, although through my extensive research on Google, I found out that this can be normal for some women. What I did not find out in all the vague articles I read was at what point do you start to panic. A few strands on your hairbrush is one thing, handfuls in the shower everyday for 2 or 3 months is another.  I consulted my friends, my hairdresser, my mom, my cousins and just about anyone I could get to talk about it. Everyone told me not to worry because it would grow back eventually. Well excuse me if my sudden male patterned baldness has my britches in a twist. It was bad, and I'm not talking Michael Jackson Bad. I'm talking buy a wig and start a doo rag trend bad.

To conceal it, I tried to keep my hair cut short (it was less traumatic to see the shorter strands falling out) and used about $500 dollars worth of hair products. (Hopefully Josh is not reading this because he is a cheap a$$) None of them really seemed to help a whole lot, but I had to do something. It wasn't until Tripp's first birthday party that I could look at pictures of myself and not cringe.

So this time I was prepared! I was 6 weeks postpartum with my daughter and I knew what was about to go down. Everyone always told me that "Maybe it wont happen this time." Where there wasn't a chance in hell of that happening, because I hadn't lost one strand of hair on my head since I was 7 weeks pregnant. So I went and get my hair cut and colored and looking pretty good and I braced myself for it.  It started about 8 weeks postpartum this time. At first I was brave. I would brush my hair before I got in the shower and get all the hair out I could. I would say in my head "F U Hair. You don't want to stay on my head, that's fine. You never looked good anyway!"  Then as my hair has dwindled, the bravery has subsided. Now I comb it and say "Well, if some of y'all wanna hang around for awhile, that would be fan-friggin-tastc!"

Instead of falling out in clumps to make me seems like I have a legit medical condition, it has kinda fallen out all over and more so at my temples. This gives me the appearance of a middle aged hippy man that has not accepted that his days of rollin doobies and hanging at Woodstock are over. What is worse, is that when I bring it up, people are like "Yeah, I noticed after you had Tripp and thought something was wrong with you." NO Assholes, you aren't supposed to tell someone that you noticed there postpartum hair loss made them look like a wet dog with mange. You are supposed to keep your mouth shut, then you can talk about your friends hair on your blog, that God bless her heart I hope she doesn't read.

So here are my tips for surviving the trauma.
#1. Although I don't really know if it helped or not, but I ended up really liking Nioxin shampoo and have continued to use it
#2 Keep your hair cut short
#3Change your part for awhile which gives the illusion of some volume.
#4 Brush your hair BEFORE you get in the shower to get the extra hair out. If you have just had a baby, you are already way to flabby and vulnerable when you are naked in the shower.
#5 There is no way to keep the hair from falling out, the quicker it gets out, the sooner a new hair will grow in behind it
#6 Don't ask your friends if they notice how bad your hair looks. They are not blind and its not nice for them to have to lie.
#7 In all honesty, your husband probably doesn't notice, unless its just to gripe at you for clogging up the drain. Most heterosexual men are really THAT dense when it comes to all things beauty.

So there you go. I'm going bald and I know it. Piper is almost 4 months old and I think the shedding has peaked and now I just have to wait and see what grows back.  Hopefully in the meantime no one will try to quarantine me at the pound.