Mommy Makeover, Mom of 3 in my 40s

I’ve been feeling extra swollen and bloated over the last couple of days, today especially. I feel some relief hen I take he binder off or a short break. I really want to decrease my pain meds but the discomfort I’m feeling subsides with them. I am going to focus on drinking more water, lots more water. I semi started back to work today (from home) and was worn out by noon. I will be going to my post-opp appointment tomorrow and hope to have more info on what to aspect and how I can deal with the swelling (upper thighs, waistline, breasts and upper back/bra line).

Bottom line, the recovery of a mommy makeover procedure is intense, but manageable with the right support system.

My bf dropped me off early on surgery day. I was only allowed 1 visitor and since my good friend (who happens to be a nurse) was the visitor discharging me he could not come in with me. Having a major surgery during the Covid pandemic definitely takes things to a whole new level. I got dressed and spent time seated on the bed doing some yoga stretches and then standed next to the bed doing more yoga stretches... I knew it would be a while until I would be able to do all of those things, those movements, that mean so much to me. The night before both my anesthesiologist and my doctor called me to see how I was doing and asked me some questions so they would have everything they needed for the morning of surgery. I felt so at peace that they would take the extra step in doing that.

I’m met the nurse and then the anesthesiologist came in and talked to me a little bit more and finally it was time for Dr. Camp to come in and do all of his fancy marker drawings on my body indicating where he would be cutting and doing the liposuction. I asked him if he would be featuring me on his Instagram stories and told him he had my permission to do so because I was excited to see everything before it got all bandaged up. Plus, if you follow Dr. Camp on Instagram (and you should) you know they have a lot of fun in the OR and it’s totally my kind of fun.

The anesthesiologist came back into the room and got my cocktail started, I could feel some cool things running through my vein and I remember being wheeled down the hallway in the hospital; at that point I must’ve fallen asleep.

I’m not a large person, I have a small frame and I’m a pretty active woman in my 40s. I have three children and nursed all of them for anywhere from 13 to 15 months. I gained quite a bit of weight with my first child, somewhere around 55 maybe 60 pounds and on my 5‘2” frame that’s a lot. Over the course of my next two pregnancies and then making some lifestyle changes as my children grew, I got to where I was maintaining a healthy weight of around 125 pounds. Yet... Over the years my children would say things like, “why doesn’t your stomach match the rest of your body, mommy?” or “why does it look like you have a baby growing in your tummy?” The women in my family have always carried their weight around the midsection and once I reached 40 I definitely noticed a change in how I carried my fat even though I eat really very healthy and I exercise regularly doing a combination of yoga, hiit training and weightlifting. I want to add that those are things I participate in as a means of self-care, not because I want to be skinny or look a certain way. I love exercising (even when I don’t feel like doing it). I know there is no such thing as perfect but for as long as I can remember my middle section has caused me so much insecurity and embarrassment that I finally decided one day that I could do this for myself. I originally was not going to do anything with my breasts but after a couple of years of thinking about the tummy tuck I realized that it would be really nice to have some of the volume back that was lost over all those years of nursing. I thought about how freeing it would feel to be able to just put on a dress or a bathing suit and not have to make accommodations for where things didn’t “fill out” on the top half of the garments.

Over the course of four years I interviewed a total of three doctors and three were things I liked about each of them. I ended up falling and tearing my rotator cuff which resulted in a major shoulder surgery not once, but twice, over the course of two years so that set my own mommy makeover surgery back quite a bit. But everything happens for a reason... it was during that time that I came across a friend who showed me pictures of her friend who had just a tummy tuck by Dr Camp and I was so impressed with her pics that I made an Appt for a consultation As soon as it made sense to with my shoulder in recovery.