OK, you have great hair, its a very nice texture all curly like that. I have curly hair too, and am a hairdresser so I have tons of advice..... 1 your hair grew longer while prego cause you were prolly taking some type of pre natal pills. Those pills are amazing, and you can still take them while your not expecting, makes your hair, nails and skin glow! They are just full of so much good stuff. Plus having a baby takes soo much out of a girl, thats sometimes hard to get back (vitamin,nutrition,etc). (side note:my mom actually lost teeth after having kids,it took soo much out of her)
2 curly hair is by nature harder to keep moisturized, causing more damage, just naturally. what i mean by that is that the scalps natural oils (sebum) have a harder time getting to the ends of the hair to do the job of naturally conditioning, which is one of the reasons why so many curly hair grls have great, beautiful soft hair closer to the scalp and dry, brittle breaking, discolored ends. I would say pass on a couple of new shadows, and spend on some good shampoo and conditioners. you really want to find something thats not made with fruit waxes and veg oils, as they coat the hair shaft and create a buildup, that over time causes mmore dry, brittle hair that is way more prone to breakage.
3 about the color. take it back to the store and get your money back. the go over to your local beauty supply store, pick the color you want (if you do finally choose to color your hair) and get a 10 vol developer. (5vol if they have it), then just follow the directions. the problem with store brands is that they have the highest level of ammonia which you can prolly guess does the most over all damage to your hair. you prolly wont be able to purchase color lines like goldwell without a cosmotology license, but thats okay, you will still get better results. oh, and before I forget, when coloring your hair, do the root (closest to your scalp) first. then 10-15 mins before you wash apply to the ends. the ends are always the most porous and have a tendency to take darker that what you expect!
4 haircuts. you need them. at least every 2 months. what i have learned is that the more you cut it, the more it grows
. usually if you cut .5in, it will grow back close to dbl to over compensate. also strange enough, it seems to me that ppl somehow have a genetic make up that says about how long their hair will grow, then it stops. I know, pretty weird, huh?
well anyways, i know that was a lot of info, but I hope something I said helps!! Good luck, and remember that as stressed as you may be now, one day there will be none, and your gonna miss this!!