Who knew?

There's really no way to know or anticipate everything about pregnancy. Everyone is different and may deal with certain aspects of pregnancy and never have to deal with others. I thought going into pregnancy that I knew most of the common things that happen. Tiredness, nausea/morning sickness, swelling, massive boob growth, etc. But I have been experiencing two things that I never knew could happen during pregnancy.

First, my hair started falling out. I thought taking prenatal vitamins and being pregnant is supposed to make your hair grow longer and thicker and become all luxurious and awesome. I was looking forward to that since I've always had thin, temperamental hair. Except apparently my body reacts to progesterone (the hormone that overtakes you when you're pregnant) in an entirely different way. No amount of prenatal vitamins can help. My hair falls out. My hair is noticeably thinner and everyday I pull out more in the shower and find more on the counter and sink after I blow dry my hair. The only things preventing me from having big gaps in my hair at this point are the prenatal vitamins. I am developing a bald spot on the front right side of my head. I can't put my hair in a pony tail anymore because it's so thin. And it just pulls more out. Now that I'm back at work (since I was off all summer) I have to actually fix my hair everyday which puts more stress on it. In the summer I could just wash and scrunch it and look all crazy, but it was better. Slowly I'm noticing less hair coming out when I shower, but there's still some. I think my body is finally adjusting to the drastic increase in hormones and leveling out a bit. My OB says there's really nothing that can be done, and I'm just hoping it doesn't fall out even more after I give birth and stop taking the vitamins.

At first it made me really sad. I felt fat and ugly and bald. Now I've just accepted it and deal with it as I need to. I try to be gentle, and use good shampoo, but that's mostly just to make myself feel better. It would fall out either way. This is not the norm, but I feel like it's definitely on par with my hair history. My hair and I have never been friends, and this is just one more way that it is turning on me. Now I know that I won't go bald, and even if my hair thins it won't be the end of the world. I love being pregnant, so it's not something that's going to rain on that.

The second thing that I'm dealing with is not quite as dramatic, but grosses me out. I was completely unaware that it's very common for pregnant women to drastically increase their mucous production. There is so much gross drainage in my head right now and I hate it. I feel like my nose is always stuffy. I sneeze all the time. It's gross. Not life altering, just annoying and gross. Who knew?

I'm sure I'll continue to be surprised by things that happen, but I'm most excited about the big surprise we're getting tomorrow. We're going for our gender ultrasound tomorrow to find out if we are having a boy or girl! Woohoo! I'll put the info on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow so you can check to see our big news. In the meantime, pray that Baby B is turned the right way so we can see everything we need to!

Have a good weekend!