Mommy X 4 *Taking My Body Back* - Houston, TX

Hello to all you wonderful RealSelf junkies.. Let me start by saying that you ladies have given me so much knowledge and courage.
Ok so for a little background. I'm 29yrs old. I will be the big 30 on New Years. I have 4 kiddos. 12yrs(girl) 4yrs(boy) 2yrs(boy) 9.5mon(girl). All breastfed.
I'm almost 5'1" (yes I'm giving myself that 1/2 inch. I like to round up) and as of this morning I weighed in at 137lbs.
This blog/rant/review will be about my mommy makeover journey.
This whole process is so exciting and scary. Like I'm seriously feeling anxious just sitting here at my desk writing this.
I have wanted this for so long but was waiting to be sure we were finished having children.
When my last daughter was born in January, I made a deal with myself that if u dropped all my baby weight(including leftover weight from #3) by her 1st birthday, then I could so my surgery. No one told me I needed to lose weight or anything. I just wanted motivation to get back in shape and feel like I really earned my surgery.
Now, as for my pics. These are from this morning while getting ready for work. Wow! You ladies should have seen my 12yr olds face when I asked her "will you take some naked pictures of me?" It was priceless! lol yeah that's what she gets for doing her hair in my bathroom instead of her own :-)
But she did it for me. Thank goodness. I really didn't want to have to ask my Hunny to do it.
At this point i am still shopping around for that perfect connection with a surgeon. In not sure that really exists BUT I'm doing my best to find it.
As you all can see from my pics, I have already had breast augmentation in May of 2012. They were great for the first 2 weeks or so but once the swelling started going down and my implants started to settle, they no longer matched! :-( after a few follow ups, my surgeon decided that I must have a leak on the left side. Did I mention that I have something hard that pocks me inside the left breast?!? Dr Steeley did offered to cut whatever it is out in his office at one of my follow ups but "no thanks" that sounds painful! I'd rather deal with it until I have the implant fixed.Wonder if that is what could have caused the leak... I'm also not a fan of how he made my scar go off to the side on my left breast when he did the lift on that side.
Anyways- we became pregnant with #4 and I could not get that implant replaced before my warranty was out.
So fast forward 2years and 1baby later... I'm finally going to get fixed.
So far I have had consults for my with Dr Straka, Dr Kim, today at 12pm is Dr Basu and tomorrow is Dr Gill. I'm very excited for today's and tomorrow's app. Based on things I have ready in RealSelf.
Also, don't mind the bruises you see in the pics. Last Saturday I did an even called a toughmudder. It was awesome but brutal at the same time. I signed up months ago as part of my accountability to keep up with my weight loss goal.:-)
I need to get to work and finish payroll before I leave for the day. Other wise we will have some very upset employees if they don't get their direct deposit. Yikes- don't want that. Will update after my consult tomorrow with pros and cons of each.
Hope everyone has an awesome day!

Ok. So I left you ladies a few days back just before my final (2) consults..well I'm super excited to say that I Found My Surgeon! Yay :-)
I was pretty sure that I was going to like Dr Basu befor I even had the consult with him. I was pretty impressed with information I had gathered from my "homework" obviously otherwise I would not have scheduled the appointment to begin with. Anyways- I immediatly felt comfortable and welcome once I arrived at his office. Well not even his office really, just his building.
It's a little tricky for new comers to the building because you use one elevator from the garage and then need to switch elevators to actually get to the offices. DUAH Tasha! Well now I know. So I called the office and told the girl that answered the phone that I was in the building but wasn't sure how to get to office. She was so super nice. Instead of telling me how to get to the office, she told me "stay right there" and she came all the way down from the 21st floor and escorted me to the office making small talk the entire time like we were old friend. I felt so relaxed and welcomed by the time we made it to the office. Turns out her name is Vivian and she was the same girl that sent me my appointment papers to fill out and confirmed my appointment.
Then after a short wait I was called to the back to meet with Linnea. Also super nice and down to earth. She was very helpful and informative.
Then I had my looonng very detailed consult with Dr Basu. Followed by another q&a cession with Linnea and of course the $$ talk.
Basically I loved his office and put my deposit to hole my January 21st date.
Yes I know I still had my appointment scheduled with Dr Gill for the next day. Some of you may think I'm crazy but I actually still drove to the Woodlands the next day to meet Dr Gill. Sorry I just had to be sure! I was going to cancel it but my little sister urged me to go. She knew the "what ifs" would just bug the cramp out of me. And she was right. They totally would have.! Now I can rest easy knowing that i did my homework and I made my list of surgeons I liked and I checked everyone of them off.
So that's it for now.
Wow it seems so far away and not far enough to calm my nerves at the same time????

I wish I could do it now.....so this silly little personal deal I made with myself has me in a very small window of time.
So I gave myself until my youngest daughters 1st birthday to get to my goal weight. Her 1st birthday is January 16. So no surgery before that for sure. Plus I have 10 more pounds I would like to lose. Then.... I have all my year end stuff I have to have submitted for work that is due by January 31. No biggy there. I usually have all that submitted by mid January.
THEN my oldest daughters 13th birthday is on Febuary 25. And 13 is a big one and she finally wants a party. So I want to have my surgery as soon as possible after Sophia's 1st birthday and be ok to shop and decorate for Alyssas 13th. I think a month should be fine.
Also I scheduled for a Wednesday so I can do payroll early in the week on Tuesday, have surgery on Wednesday, rest and recover for a week and "cross my fingers" I'm able to get to work by the following Wednesday to do payroll for that week.
Pros for working at a small family business: I pretty much get to make my own hours, I have been able to bring all our children to work until they start walking and get off the boob before we ship them off to daycare :-) movie dates in the middle of the day with my hunny.... And it goes on
Cons to working at family business: there is no-one else to do the work for you!! you can never leave for very long because the work just stacks up.
Hey I shouldn't complain right . I am so blessed already and even more so that I get the opportunity to have this surgery. So I can deal with all the scheduling craziness with a big ol smile on my face :-)