Hair Confessions...

When I was a child and through high school I had extremely thick hair. It was so thick my mom had a hard time braiding it. I remember it would take 2-3 hours to air dry when I was in Jr. High. When I was in high school I developed terrible acne and started taking birth control pills to help it. It worked, a little, and I remained on those pills for a VERY long time. Around my senior year of college I started to notice that my hair was thinner than it had been. It was a big enough deal that I asked my doctor about it, but not such a big deal that I was super concerned. She didn't think it had anything to do with being on birth control, so, I continued taking it as I was still dealing with acne. After college I finally started to love my curly hair. I really embraced it, grew it long and it must really have been gorgeous, because everywhere I went people would comment on it and tell me how pretty it was. It happened so often it was almost comical. The following picture is what it looked like during that time.


A year and a half later I went to Italy with my best friend Emily. My hair looked like this. I was still getting compliments, but not as often.

Two years later (summer 2008) I got to go back to Italy with my husband and parents. The picture below was taken in the exact same place - I was just facing the opposite direction. If you click on the two Italy pictures you can really tell a difference in how thin my hair is in the bottom picture as compared to the top. When we got back and I saw this, I started to get really worried.

This picture was taken a year and a half ago - and it has gotten worse. I won't wear my hair down anymore. I really started to push the issue with my doctor. I wanted to figure out why I was losing my hair. I started doing a lot of research and found out that birth control pills could cause hair loss. After LOTS of talks about it, Brian and I decided that it would be best to see if the pills were causing my hair loss. 15 months later I can tell you that stopping the pills didn't make a difference at all. I have had lots of blood work done. Everything was coming back normal. I started using using nice shampoo, conditioner and hairspray (I have become a total hair spray snob...expensive stuff really works better). Nothing was helping and it was frustrating knowing that there was nothing to be found in my blood work. From everything I was reading online it sounded like there could be something wrong hormonally that blood tests wouldn't show. Infertility was mentioned on lots of sites that were discussing hair loss. I was worried we wouldn't be able to have kids. We started talking a lot more about trying sooner than we were originally thinking, wondering if it would be a long time before we could get pregnant. Brian was coming around to the idea and I was getting really excited to start trying since I had terrible baby fever. Thankfully, infertility wasn't in our cards and we got pregnant rather quickly.

Finally, about 4 weeks after I was found out I was pregnant with Baby Fox I went to the dermatologist and had a scalp biopsy done. A week later I received a call saying that I have female pattern hair loss. Yep, I'm balding. Female hair loss is often an all over thinning instead of the bald shiny top with hair around the neck and ears as is common in men. I am thankful to know that there is nothing "wrong" with me, but very sad to know that this is not going to get better. The only treatment option that was given to me was rogaine...which I can't use while pregnant or breast feeding. I'm guessing a wig might be in my future - and that is a scary/sad thought.

I can't believe how much this plays into daily life. I won't buy certain shirts because I don't like how it looks with my hair up. Getting ready in the morning takes at least 20 minutes longer because it actually takes longer to deal with less hair. Everywhere I go I notice hair. I check out pony tail thickness all time time. I am constantly jealous of women with thick hair. I get angry when women with nice hair don't style it or don't keep it nice looking. Why can't they trade with me? If they're not going to bother to do their hair, can I just have it? Your hair will be the first thing I notice about you...whether you are my friend or a character in a movie I'm watching.

I'll keep you posted if I soon enter into the lifestyle of wearing a wig... Maybe if I do it right after the baby is born people will be too busy staring at the baby to notice that my hair suddenly looks different. :)

29

29 is the number of women I just wrote down on a list - a list of people I know who are pregnant. I realize that this is the stage of life we're in, but seriously, does this seem like a rather large number to you all? I really could make it 32 if I counted people I've never met in real life, but whose blogs I stalk and know of them through friends. Also, be mindful that I've recently had to take 4 people off this list because they've had their babies in the last 6 weeks or so. :) 2010 is going to be a fun year!