At the 3 month mark; Baby is happier, more entertained, and pulling out of the ‘4th trimester…I am losing my hair. This is normal; something I had been warned about. Last night, piles of my hair came out while I took a shower. “Woah,” I thought, recalling a friend saying she felt like a cancer patient on chemo when her body started shedding all her pre-baby hair. While that sounds awfully dramatic, I was a bit shocked at the sight of so much hair circling the drain.

It’s true that I had started to take my luxurious mane for granted. For the first time in ten years I have hair down to my shoulders. Gone were the many versions of the layered bob I’d been sporting; as soon as pregnancy hit, I celebrated the thickest long hair I’ve ever had, (tied back in a ponytail every damn day, mind you, but I still had it!). Because I can’t seem to get myself to the salon, I’ve been hacking at my bangs with scissors, angling everything upward in a shaggy attempt to look stylishly care free. Now my hair is all over the house, littering my pillow, the laundry, and my son’s mouth.

So much of the baby/pregnancy experience is physically crazy and bizarre. But so much of it I have gotten use to. I’ve gotten use to the strange sensation of nursing, of my weird post-pregnancy body that can’t quite fit into my old clothes, and even the sporadic, interrupted, sleep. But losing my hair is a strange visual. In some ways I relish being one more step closer to my ‘old’ self. The old me never had this hair…it was always thin, stringy, filled with broken ends and limp. The old me is buried somewhere in this post-baby, new mom, body. The old me feels tiny and ignored, a hopeful blip, desperate to return.

Sure, the new me has this really fascinating little person to hang out with all the time. The new me has organized playgroups and connected with a brand new community. The new me is longing for the usual New Mom type of things: sleep, a cry-free existence, and new clothes. But then there’s the old me nipping at my heels…longing for theater and dance…