Still in Progress, but Happy So Far - Petoskey, MI

I am a 29 year old female, with two children. 10 yr old and just turned 1. I had gestational diabetes with my latest child, and gained about eighty lbs. I am engaged to be married june 1st, and my fiance is not the father of either of my children, and he has not seen me undressed yet... I was very self conscious about my stomach, and the stretch marks and loose skin... I also wasn't very happy with my breasts since I had nursed both of my babies.
My motivation was to get my body back before I got married, and to feel good about sharing myself with my husband, who had nothing to do with the negative affects pregnancy had on my body.
I am three days post op, and have some alone time to start this review, but I hope to continue to update it as I progress in recovery!

Yesterday I got one drain, a couple stitches and a couple small staples out. none of it hurt, and could NOT believe the relief from the one drain being gone! and was even more shocked at how LONG the drain was. For some reason I thought the part of the drain tube that was inside me was only a few inches... nope. The thing went all the way up to my chin! The worst pain I have noticed since my operation is an occasional sharp, stabbing, cutting, burning sensation right a the bottom of my sternum. It was paralyzing, and confusing. I asked my doc about it and he felt the area and said everything was fine... well after the nurse took that one drain out it made sense to me! I think the top of the drain was occasionally putting pressure on the muscles up there an pinching or whatever. I am so glad to have that out! My back is killing me from being 'hunchback' and I am trying to stand straighter, I am sure it is mostly physiological at this point, but sometimes when I do stand up very straight it feels like that other drain right below my breasts pulls on something or the muscles pinch and so I have to hunch back over to relieve the pain. I have wanted to post a bunch of pictures of my recovery since I know before my surgery I wanted to see the progression of the healing from surgery on... but I realize why there is not a whole ton of those available... we are RECOVERING haha I have a couple though :)

I was initially very concerned with 'dog ears' the day of my surgery... My incision looked like a shelf, and there were all sorts of ripples and dimples. I didn't have very many options of surgeons and also felt I was on a time crunch with my wedding coming up so soon. I was afraid maybe I had not been patient in getting the surgery done, and picked a bad doctor (since I only had one option in Petoskey, MI) but as my swelling went down, I immediately noticed it flattening out, and also asked my PS office about revisions. I did not know before hand if he did in office dog ear revisions for free or not... I was sooo relieved when I found out that he would take care of them in his office at no charge to me. However the nurse said he HARDLY EVER needs to because his patients don't get them. I really don't think I will need to, but the knowledge that it wouldn't be at a cost to me helped put me at peace anyway.

I had my surgery on Friday morning, and on Monday I spent a lot of time working myself up about different complications I could have... Like skin necrosis. I ended up driving myself to the office to make sure I didn't have any starting... it was dried blood not dead skin tissue ;) I also had a TON of swelling in the mons region that turned blackish purple near the drain sites... that scarred me since I definitely didn't want to get skin necrosis down there right before my honeymoon!! the bruising is already pretty much gone. what a relief.

Another interesting fact about my surgery... Originally I had scheduled the consult for only a tummy tuck. I knew I wanted both tummy and breast surgery but my fiancé was skeptical and uneasy about the tummy tuck to begin with. The only reason he even listened to me about the tummy tuck was because we both are very into physical activities... we both are runners and hikers and he is very into outdoor sports like mountain biking ect.. so I was explaining that I knew I had lost all my pregnancy weight, and that I was as 'toned' as I could be. After my daughter I had stretch marks but I did not have nearly as much skin elasticity as I did after my son. The extra loose skin made the shape of my stomach actually change, instead of just having stretch marks I had them, and a weird shaped belly button ect.. He understood that and could agree and offered to pay for the surgery for me. But he didn't want me to get breast implants for numerous personal reasons... A few days before my consult I brought up the breast augmentation too.. and after a little resistance he agreed to 'consider' it as an option. Yippee!!
So anyway... I had not even thought about the fact that I was still nursing my 11 month old son! it dawned on me the day before my consultation and I started researching the contradictions of nursing and breast implants... not much info.. but the stuff I did find was discouraging because most of it said that a woman should be completely dried of any milk for 6 months before considering having breast implants :(

so the day of my consult I told the doctor that I was nursing and he said he would like to see at least 3 months after weaning... another sad face... then I expressed my desire to have the surgery before my wedding... and that I could stop nursing immediately.. he said he would do it, but that the concern he would have is that the size of the implant might be compromised due to the original breast size not being completely known if there were to still be milk filling in my tissues. I stopped nursing he next day, and put cabbage leaves in my bra and did some other things to try and dry my milk up quick... I only had a couple weeks until the surgery and was scarred that I would end up getting mastitis and not be able to get the surgery in time for recovery before my wedding/ honeymoon! All went well though and I am so glad it did!!!