Oh The Horror-Mones!

Junk Drawer 8/22/2012

This is really a Junk Drawer post but I just felt like being dramatic with the title. Hormones. Lovely, lovely things they are. Actually I know they’re important but if you ever get the hormone cocktail off balance weird, scary, ugly, funny, terrible things can happen. Just think of the top 5 times your hormones seem to get all wacky and off kilter and you’ll know what I mean.

1. Puberty
2. PMS
3. Pregnancy
4. Menopause
5. Men’s Mid Life Crisis

Changing voices, hysterical laughing/crying jags, morning sickness/constipation, psycho-wife and toupees are only a few of the things that happen when you have too much or not enough hormones in your system…or the wrong mixture. When you get pregnant you know to expect some wacky hormones and boy do you run the gamut. Even if it doesn’t manifest emotionally you still experience so many exciting and sometimes weird physical changes. And most of us think that once you deliver the baby the hormonal crazy dance stops. To quote my Grandpa - “PSYCH!”

Sometimes I invent facts to make my theories work but I believe most of what I’m about to tell you is true. No really, it’s true….enough.

Immediately after you deliver that precious little bundle your body goes on a smaller hormonal roller coaster. Now it’s trying to feed a baby instead of grow one and you still have leftover “growing a baby” hormones in your system along with “I need to feed this baby ASAP” hormones. Add in sleep deprivation and…well, use your imagination…results can vary. But I’ll tell you if you wake up sweating at night and ridiculously hot for no good reason…its perfectly normal.

Once you hit the 3 month postpartum mark :raising my hand: you’d think you’d be back to semi-normal. And you are. Or you’ve started to adjust to your new normal anyway. But those horror-mones aren’t done with you yet. Right around 3 months your body really starts a hormonal re-balancing act and throws you for a loop because you think you should be past that by now….like way past that.

I told you all that to tell you this – my hair is falling out. Again. It happened when Jimmy was 3 months old and it’s happening again. It doesn’t happen to everyone but it is pretty common as your hormones adjust…again. I washed my hair this morning and was combing through it with my fingers, cause Jimmy took my pick and lost it somewhere, and lots of hair was falling out. I had almost forgotten to expect it. It will probably only get worse before it slowly gets better. So if you see me and my back is covered in loose hairs just know that even if you help me and pick them all off while exclaiming "there are a zillion hairs on your back!", there will be a zillion of them again in approximately 15 more minutes. Such is life.