My hair has never really been one of my best features. It’s pretty thin, it has never held a curl well, always just kind of laid there, limp and boring. I’ve never really been able to do anything with it, it’s either down or back in a ponytail. It’s been the same length and the same color for years and years. There was an ill-advised pixie cut back in my early twenties, but let us never speak of that again.
But when I was pregnant I grew a gorgeous head of hair – thick, shiny, luxurious. I could go days without washing it and it just looked fabulous all the time. Every day was a good hair day.

See? Great hair.
Until…
Yeah, one of the (many) things “they” don’t tell you about what to expect after you give birth is that all that gorgeous, thick hair? It falls out. Like all at once, all of a sudden. About four months after Áine was born, I started shedding like a balding dog. After I shower, it comes out in clumps. I’m cleaning my hairbrush every day. It’s all over my pillow when I get up in the morning. I’m constantly fishing hair out of Áine’s little fists (could be worse, I read online if you have a little boy to watch out that a loose strand doesn’t wrap around his little boy parts – owie) and feeling a tickle on my shoulder because a stray strand has fallen there. I have enough extra hair to make a small furry animal.
It’s just one example of one of the (not so) joyous little surprises that you discover after giving birth that no one really bothers to talk about, and your doctor doesn’t really bother to give you an “oh hey, by the way, now that you’ve actually had the baby, here are some things to look out for…”. None of those pregnancy books I read while I was expecting said anything about this. A friend of mine who had her daughter a couple months before Áine was born was experiencing the same thing and had actually made an appointment to go see her doctor, because she was worried that something was wrong with her. Luckily, I had just looked googled “postpartum hair loss” a day or two earlier so I could tell her not to worry about it (I thought about googling: “DEAR GOD I’M GOING BALD WHAT THE FUCK?!?” but managed to calm down a bit). It’s totally normal after-birth hormonal bullshit and should stop in a couple months. Hopefully I’ll still have some hair left when it’s over! If not, I guess I’ll be investing in a number of lovely hats for fall.




















