Hey everyone it's been way too long since I've last updated! If I remember correctly, my last update was about my pregnancy. Let me start by saying our second son Kyeton Mark, was born on January 31, 2013! He's such a joy and brings so much happiness to everyone who meets him. I had a very rough pregnancy and almost lost him several times. During that time I just couldn't handle everything going on and pretty much disappeared from social media in general. The first 7 weeks of his life we almost lost him a few times. Finally we found out through testing that his muscles in his throat were not fully developed and he had severe gastritisand GERD. At 7 weeks old he had his first surgery. He was given a PEG G-Tube. A feeding tube so that he could be fed and thrive since he wasn't able to orally. He has had 2 other minor surgeries since just switching his PEG tube to a G-Button. He is now 15 months old and in great health! He still has to be fed his liquids and most of his nutrients through his feeding tube, but slowly he can eat more solid foods.

Our oldest son Started school (kindergarten) in August of 2013. He's doing great and loves it, so far LOL! He's playing baseball and he does Tae Kwon Do, so we are very busy with all of his activities.

As for me, I removed my dreads at 38 weeks of pregnancy. I didn't want to remove them but since I didn't take much time to really section them out in the beginning, and I wasn't too worried with separatingthem during my pregnancy, they all started to congo. I had a painful mess on my head. It took 2 days but with the help of my mom and husband I was able to comb them out completely. Since then my hair has grown twice the length that it was and it has driven me crazy every day. I missed my dreads so much! so about a month ago I started dreading again. This time I took my time and really sectioned them cleanly. I made them smaller so when they are full mature I will still have fairly small dreads. I have 79 dreads so far and I still have the top portion of my hair left to go. I am doing to the twist and rip method again. I am very excited for this set and I know I will keep these ones going!

Another significant thing to mention; Since April 19, 2013 I have lost over 97 lbs! I started eating clean and organic whole foods, and exercisingand lifting weights almost every day. I fell completely in love with health and fitness and in June of this year will be a certified personal trainer!

I will be posting pictures of everything to get you all up to date visually. Needless to say the last few years of my life have been some of the scariest yet most exciting of my life!!

I hope you are all doing well. I've missed ya'll! Expect to see me around a lot more now!

-Stephani

Yesterday was the nine week mark of the birth of my dreadlocks! I still love them just as much today as I did yesterday. I have some crazy zig-zags going on in the back and one loops thus far! I love watching the changes every day. As for my itchy head, It has completely stopped after I quit using the bar and only used the liquid shampoo.

As far as other things in my life, I now know why I have been an emotional mess. I'm pregnant! My husband and I have been trying for quite some time. Our son is almost 5, and I was at the point where I thought we'd never have another child.

I've had some complications with pain, but today we got the good news that everything is in place and forming just as it should be!

It's still very early in my pregnancy, so we are praying everyday for a healthy baby.

I can't wait to take belly photo's with my dreadlocks! HAHA

I know I must not be the only one who's hair gets stared at everywhere I go, but it sure feels like it. HAHA. Most days I just ignore the fact the everyone in the room is staring at my hair. It's funny how the minute I glance at them they quickly look away, like they are trying to hide the fact that they were just staring at me for what seems like hours. It's rare when someone says "hey I like your hair" or "wow your dreads are cool" or "you look good with dreads". So this is my question, I wonder if dreads look right on me? Most of the time I'm sure people are just scared to say something to a stranger, but it makes me wonder when they look away so fast, what do they really think?

AND then, my sense of self kicks in and I realize I don't give a shit what they think. Of course, though, there is always that tiny fraction of doubt looming in the back of my mind. The blank stares of random strangers is beginning to get under my skin. I have no anxiety when I go to work, because it is my creative outlet. I don't get judged there, but out in the real world is a different story.

I am wondering what the rest of you do when you notice the stares, and how do keep your focus so those stares don't start to bother you?

Please bare with me as blogging is not my greatest talent. Opening up and expressing myself has always been something I'm not great at either. This week has been a tough one for me, so this will most likely be a venting blog. A apologize ahead of time for this blog having no point, and also for it's randomness. I have honestly debated for a long time about whether to post this or not. I ultimately decided to because I thought maybe there would be at least person that can relate.

A little back story:

In Oct. 2001 I was diagnosed with a chemical imbalance (depression and severe anxiety), and hospitalized at the age of 14. I can remember every minute, hour, day, week and month that I spent there as if it were yesterday. When I was younger I always wondered why I was always so sad. I knew I was different from other kids because they were happy, and I wasn't. My whole life I have lived under a grey cloud that weighs me down everyday. When I was younger I tried to kill the sadness with drugs and alcohol. They gave me relief, but that relief was always short lived. As soon as my buzz or high wore off, there I was again back under my cloud.

I know a lot of people suffer from depression these days, but it is still a subject that is not talked about enough. A lot of times the ones who talk about it only suffer from temporary depression, or a mild form that was brought on by a sad event. They go through their depression, and then they get over it. I wish I could say it was that way for me, but unfortunately it's not. When I was diagnosed, I was given a pill and sent on my way. Back then it was shameful to take an anti-depressant. I kept my hospital stay quiet, and only my 3 best friends and close family knew about it. Other "friends" from school were told many different stories, but no one knew for sure what was going on.

It took a few different pills to get the right fit for me, but after a couple months it was helping. This may sound strange to those who don't suffer from depression or anxiety, but I finally had a grip of what it felt like to be "normal". When I say normal I don't mean what society calls normal, I mean normal as in I finally felt like I should've felt my whole life. Happy. My cloud was gone, only rarely would it trail far behind me. I could finally interact with my friends and classmate like a happy teenager would. Every time I would spent time with my sister she would ask me who took her sister and replaced her with this talkative, hyper person. I wanted to do things with my friends. I wanted to draw, and listen to music. I didn't have to wake up everyday and put on my "plastic Stephani" and pretend I could function. I could actually do it, and I wanted to!

Unfortunately though, along with all that happy, I still had shame bottled up deep inside. Shame from having to take a pill in order to function like every other person. In my mind, no one I knew had to take a pill to make them happy, they could be happy on their own. Why did I have to take this stupid pill just to feel normal? I was angry. I was angry at a lot of different things. We all have things from our childhood that aren't such happy things, but I held on to mine for far too long.

When I started my pills, I was told by the Dr. that I would be on them for the rest the of my life. Most people who need anti-depressants are only prescribed them for a relatively short period of time. I stopped taking my pills about a year after I was diagnosed. My Dr, was not happy with me at all, and to this day still checks on me through family (he's been our family Dr. for longer then I've been alive).

My life since going off my pills has been a roller coaster of crazy. After I stopped the medicine I started hanging with the wrong crowd and I got involved in things I knew nothing about. Things got pretty bad for a while, and I kind of spiraled out of control until about late 2005. I was at a bar (under aged) and I fell and completely shattered every ligament in my right ankle. Because I was put in a HUGE boot and on crutches for 8 months I had to move back in with my mom. Looking back, tearing my ankle all to pieces saved my life. I was on a crash course to nowhere fast, and the train was about to derail. During my time isolated on my mom's sofa is when I met my husband. He was the best thing that could have happened to me, and in the first year we spent together my depression never showed it's ugly head.

I told you all of that, to tell you this... In the 6 and half years that I have spent with my husband, he has never had the chance to experience how happy I truly can be. He's never seen the person I am with the help of my medicine. My cloud is back, and it's in full force.

My depression is probably worse then it's ever been. I have gotten great at hiding it, but it's truly getting harder every day. I'm kind of lost and drowning in my thoughts every day. I will never revert back to drugs, or my old lifestyle. But, I'm more so going in the other direction now. I'm becoming a complete hermit, I don't ever want to leave my house, and the only reason that I really do is because I have to work. Even going to work is becoming a challenge. I LOVE what I do, but my depression is doing what it does best. It's so great at making me not give a shit about anything.

My Mom wants me to get back on my med's, and in my heart I know that is what I should do for own sanity, but still I'm conflicted. I have all these thoughts jumbled in my head and I can't express them. I just feel so frustrated and sad.

I honestly have no idea where this blog is going, or why I'm even writing it. I don't talk to many people about my depression, because most don't understand it, but I guess it's nice to just get it out regardless if anyone reads it or not. I wish I knew how to express myself better.

So as most of you know, I started my dreads as a partial head. I still had A LOT of loose hair in the beginning. Because of the way I started them as a partial, sectioning perfectly never crossed my mind. I literally just grabbed hair and twist and ripped it. Never thought twice about it until now that my whole head has been finished for about 2 weeks now. My sections are all woven together and they all want to congo. I spend a lot of time trying to separate them, and when I don't separate for a day I will have TONS of sections matted together. I don't want them to look real neat or uniform, which is why I like my random sections but it's becoming a pain. The sections are so woven into each other that it's almost like all my hair at the scalp is becoming matted. The only place it isn't matting together, and staying in separate dreads is at the very top of my head because I could actually sectioned it since that portion didn't already have dreads in it.

If this has happened to any of you, or if you have any opinions or things you would recommend me doing, I'd love to hear your idea's!

As much as I would like to avoid taking them out and starting over with neater sectioning, I'm thinking it's almost necessary. Otherwise I feel like I'm going to end up with one big lock coming off my head.

I'll try to attach some pictures so you guys can get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

They say ignorance is bliss, but I believe it is a burden. Being close minded about any one subject shows just how soulless a person is, in my opinion anyway. Today, while searching for pictures of beautiful hair and Dreadlocks on pinterest.com, I came across This Photo . The comments infuriated me. I know everyone has their freedom of speech, but I don't understand the point of leaving a negative comment just for the sake of being negative. I was going to look past it until I read further down and came across a comment left by hairstylist. I had to stay something. This subject is so near and dear to my heart I could not pass up the opportunity to possibly open someone's eyes to a new idea. You can read her comment and what I said to the her in the link above, or just read it here:

Enelrahc Etraud
Im a hair dresser & have been for many many many years.. It's impossible to clean you scalp to what I would consider "clean" & the matted hair is just a collection of hair & skin & blanket lint that should have been shed.. I've had the great pleasure of removing them from several peoples head over the years.. & might I add.. I was delighted to do so:)

So far so good. I'm almost at the 4 week mark and a majority of my family have seen my dreads. Everyone likes them, it's shocking to me lol! Yesterday my MOM even told me they looked pretty, and she MEANT it!! HAHA. She even wants me to grow them super long! This is such a big change from where we started at, but I think she knows that this wasn't just a spur of the moment decision for me. I think she can finally respect my decision, and she even likes it. I wasn't expecting her to warm up to my dreads so fast, but I'm glad she did.

In other news, I have a dread on the right side of my head that is trying to split and it's kind of starting to pull so I'm going to comb it out and separate it into two. I hope that will help it because it's hurting my head as it is.

Sorry this was a short little update. I hope all the mama's out there had a fantastic Mother's Day.

Oh, also I'm still working on editing my other video, I had zero time yesterday. I will try to work on it tonight after work. May not be loaded until tomorrow or Wednesday though.

So I uploaded a "4 week progress" video today! So check that out if you get time. Also, I recorded a video about dreads in general. Info as far as wax and ways to dread, things like that. I'll try to get it loaded tomorrow. It still needs edited though so if I get a chance with all of our running around mothers day madness I'll get it up asap.

Okay that was all, just a fast little update. Check out my video if you all get time and let me know what ya think