The evolution of my hair

Editor’s note: Imma tell you now, this post is FULL of gratuitous shots of me in variations of hair. Even though I wasn’t posting anything, I was taking lots of pictures. Just so you know 🙂

Years and years and years ago when I started my little blog, The Accidental Natural, it was a hair blog. I was newly natural and was interested in figuring out how to get big ringlets.

HA!!! Joke was on me! I was not a ringlet having girl. After playing around with techniques, products and having lots of patience, I figured it out–well, most of it out. For about five years, I was all about twist outs, deep conditioning and trying to find the perfect regime.

evolution 2 — I had to add the photo to the left, because I can’t stop laughing at it. It was taken in 2004, I think and I look so old. LOL!!! I know the flips were trendy at the time, but damn. I look 10 years younger in the photo on the left.

Then, I got pregnant.

And I was sick as a dog. Fatigue and all-day sickness–I mean SICK.

When you can barely hold your head up, you’re not really trying to spend three hours washing and styling your hair. So, I got through the first 30 weeks and finally was able to keep food down and regained some energy to do my hair on a regular basis.

Then my daughter was born.

See was wonderful and tiny and all we had prayed for because getting pregnant had been a journey in itself. As wonderful as she was (and is), she was (and still is) a handful. I just didn’t have the time for hair and it was starting to shed.

evolution 3 — Can I say my hair was glorious…until my daughter was about six months. Then it started coming out in clumps. My edges were gone and I was worried about what was happening. Like, were my hormones off? No, just regular postpartum hair loss.

That’s when I did it. I loc’d my hair. I’ve always loved locs, but I have scalp issues and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to contend with those issues and have my hair look the way I wanted it to. I got them started with my hairdresser, but I am not the type of person to go to a salon regularly. I love playing with my hair…

…but it’s a lot harder with a baby. And a baby who loved (and still loves) attention.

Once my hair loc’d, it became a lot easier to take care of and I was getting into a routine of sorts. I was tired–the kid didn’t like to sleep–but I found the few hours each week to do my hair.

evolution 4 — This is the evolution of me from “I just had a child and no clue what I’m doing” and I’m EXHAUSTED mom to “alright, I’m figuring this out” mom. As I was looking through the images, I didn’t even recognize myself in the first image. Who was that person? The photos are from starter locs to my hair finally loc’ing and looking pretty.

In January 2015, I started to feel really tired, like extremely tired. Was I anemic? That was what the doctor told me…just before she told me I was pregnant.

What?!?! After the journey to get pregnant with our first child, just getting pregnant wasn’t anything that I thought would happen easily and without medical intervention.

Fast-forward three weeks, I was sick as a dog. And this time, I was sick for the entire pregnancy. Who’s thinking about hair? That pregnancy was hard–I was vomiting numerous times a day. It was summer and the heat and sun were killing me.

evolution 5 — Because I was so sick, I have this one lone photo where you can see my hair and the length. I look happy, but I was suffering. I probably was running to a washroom to throw up.

After 38.5 weeks of sickness and misery, I gave birth to daughter #2, who is fun, spunky and adorable like her big sister…and also a handful. We had a 3.5-year-old and a newborn.

Hair? Hair, what? I barely had time to bathe, furthermore spend time researching products and fine-tuning hair regimes.

I let my hair do and it did and here we are, 4.5 years later and hair almost touching the top of butt. As the girls get older, I have some more time to fiddle and play with my hair–not like how I used to, but every so often.