Upper and Lower Blepharoplasty

When you see my updated pics, I added some in to compare. In one I am 27 yrs old on the left and my current age of 35 on the right 7 months post op. I found this photo because people were telling me I looked like a different person. When you see my other comparison photo of when I was 34 pre surgery vs. 35 and post op I totally get it. I do look like a different person in that comparison. Firstly, my face clearly aged huge after I had kids! Specifically my eyes as when we hit our mid 30's our skin changes and looses collagen. I've said this before but the bags on my dads side of the family are hereditary. Mine didn't get bad until I hit 32 yrs old. ANYWAY, I AM SOOOOOOOO happy I had this procedure done. I don't regret it for a second.
I meant to post photos sooner than now but here I am at 7 months post op. I have dry eyes at times so I use drops almost daily and definitely daily when I wear contacts. But I had dry eyes before so it's not too much different now. My lower right lid has not fully regained feeling, but I'm used to it now. Prior to surgery I used eyeliner under my eyes, but now I don't at all. I find my eyes almost look too big. I know it sounds weird but it's the truth. My eyes still water at night from time to time. I FOUND A TRICK to get your eyes to not be as dry and to help with red tired eyes. At night before bed soak a cloth in very very warm water. lay down and put the cloth over your eyes. keep it on for 5 min. Sometimes I re-soak my cloth. Anyway it seems to really help with dry eyes. When I'm not lazy and consistently do this I notice my eyes are more white (less red at the end of the day). My optometrist told me this trick.

Well it's certainly been a journey. Some people write their reviews and it seems like everything was a piece of cake for them. Maybe they just leave the details out, but I think back to when I was trying t decide whether or not to do this and I wanted to know alllll about peoples experiences so that if I encountered something similar I wouldn't think it was just me.
Some things that I currently still experience:
-the dry eyes have gotten MUCH better but now I have watery eyes. I find it odd as tears will actually wet my face in the night. Not all nights but some. Seems worse with makeup.
-I'm still sensitive to light. Not like in the beginning though.
-I still have some bumps at the incisions sites. Not many but a few. Seems to be worse at the outer part of my eyes. Like the last stitch or something... hoping it goes away.
-my lids in various places are numb, so putting on makeup is extremely odd
Like I've mentioned before my right eye has always been bigger, so my expectations were not for complete symmetry.
My biggest struggle has been that I don't recognize myself in the mirror. Slowly it's becoming more normal for me....but it's taking a while for this to sink in. My eyes have always been full of expression, but now I find the muscles/skin/everything is still healing and those things may take time to come back to a new normal. It's so weird.
In a few days I'll post some 6 week post op photos with no makeup.

Things are going good. Even at 3 weeks I still feel a little swollen at times and eyes are still a little tight. The tightness is getting better though and I still ice 1-3 times a day. I'm at a lake and it's been very sunny and hot. I've been wearing sunglasses and a hat to keep my eyes out of the sun. Even if I was allowed to have my eyes in the sun I wouldn't want to as it's too bright. This week isn't as bad dealing with brightness but last week was still sensitive. I'm using gel drop in eyes at night and then normal drops 1-2 times during the day. We are out boating every day so I feel like my dryness is pretty normal considering the environment. Again I'm wearing big sunglasses that fit over my glasses so not a lot of wind can get in. Yesterday was the first day I put swim goggles on and went for a swim! FELT AMAZING to get my face in the water.
My right eye still is taking it's time healing and although I can shut it properly now it's not quite strong enough and I don't like to put my face directly in the shower stream as I get water in my eye.
I think I'm being pretty realistic in my expectations. I by no means have a symmetrical face, so I wasn't expecting complete symmetry. I am very happy my bags are gone. I do feel like I look completely different haha. I know it's because of the upper lids. Personally my upper lids never really bothered me before because my lower lids were all I focussed on. Looking back I feel a bit neutral on having the uppers done. Maybe I would have focussed more on them if I had only had my lowers done....and then I would have regretted not getting both done at the same time. Who knows.... Either way I don't regret anything and I know the final results won't show for a little longer.
BIGGEST piece of advice is have realistic expectations and a good surgeon.