Diary of a Dancer, My Journey to a Mommy Makeover - Raleigh-Durham, NC

Friday 26 October 2012

For the past few years, with me yo-yoing with the thought of having my Mommie Makeover I have decided that I will be doing it, for medical reasons. The conditions of the diastasis recti, and to finally do something for myself, that will aid me in my aspirations. Despite what anyone tells me (or whomever reading this if you've ever heard this or something like it.) I don't believe in being "To ambitions for my situation" I've looked at videos for quite sometime now, they we all quite intriguing, and being the kind of gross lady that I am I would only look for more and more and more and in all actuality the procedure really isn't that bad. I mean for one thing not only to we as women push out human beings from our birth canals and (some one us) get it sewn back together sometimes (myself included) get cut open and have the human pulled from us. So a surgery to better our bodies, or the "fix it" as some of us may say is as equally important and useful as having our own little creations removed from us. Below are the links of the videos that I have favorited and watched like 122x to convince myself that this is just fine for me to want for myself. If I ever get the courage to post my own videos to document my journey I'll post the videos directly here. It would be nice to not only have to save for myself, but be able to show my children what women not only go through as humans, but as "women in a man's society" how most see cosmetic surgery as a vanity routine in order to stay young (which for some that may be true) but some don't realize or haven't learned that your body is resiliently obsolete, and ever muscle serves a purpose, but most of all if your core is unhealthy, or inadequate, then the rest of your body isn't as efficient anymore. Well excuse me, that's the hurt dancer in me talking right now. I really have come to realize of how I wasn't as appreciative of having a healthy gut before as I am now, since it's mutilated now. I once would either complain how how it pudge out especially after I ate, but still flaunted it, because I was well arrogant at one point in time about having a dancers body. It was a narcissistic love I had. As in I either loved it graciously, or when she wasn't "up to par" I hated her. I was much more concerned about the outside of how she looked, not taking into account of how necessary my muscle were as a dancer. I just thought that even in a diverse class of dancers, size and all, that automatically made everything fall into place abdominally. As if our tum-tums were invincible. What I lesson I learned right. Well, to sum this up, and work on deciding on when to call to make an appointment I will finally leave with the links attached. If you're squeemish, you may not want to look, but either way, it's very useful to know kind of what the procedure looks like if you have yet to have yours. Enjoy!

(the procedures that I'm looking to get)
Full Tummy Tuck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifsTtMXFa9w&feature=BFa&list=FLg0tTWc_2oHDVHCQy-Mf22g

Breast Injections
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3oMMMWeTTA&feature=BFa&list=FLg0tTWc_2oHDVHCQy-Mf22g

Tuesday 16 October 2012 Questions! Questions! Questions! Stirring in my brain.

Although I have yet to have my first consultation, the anxiety is beginning to fester. It's benign but brewing none the less. Right now I have oh so many questions that i want to as the surgeon so I decided to write them out. I have approximately 30 questions written out, give or take 2 or 3. I don't think I have any simpleminded questions, but then again...I'm the patient not the surgeon so the Doctor should be well equipped to answer any dim questions. Of my multitude (and still growing) questions that I do have the one I am most curious to find out the answer to is "Would you be willing to furnish any dissatisfactions?" It is not to discredit the surgeon it is moreso to incorporate with experience and also to see what other people expect (which I understand is a MIRACLE haha). After that question I ask "How did you accommodate it or what reasoning did you give for the results with the patients issue?" Which I think also gives insight to the fact that I understand that most dissatisfactions come from having overbearing expectations and just not knowing what the real deal is as far as being the patient and not the surgeon. As of right now I am going to keep my list where it is, I am pretty sure my researching will answer some of my existing questions as well as generate new ones. Adios! Beautiful ladies!

Going from a svelte body to one that has been through some things can take a toll on anyone. This is something we mommies think about constantly as we are growing another human being in our uteri. We feel the love, we are innately thrilled that we are properly using our bodies to their full capacity, of child bearing and child birth, but then there is the flip side. The damage.

Living in a society with excessive pressure for women to be physically perfect is outrageous. I, for one, am a woman who believes the thicker the woman the more beautiful she is. It takes very little effort for her to look, what we call, “womanly.” Her breasts are obviously ripe and voluptuous, her hips are wide and floetic, her buttocks and thighs are lusciously abundant. I would often imagine myself, as a 5 ’11 (or taller) woman who weighed 180-200 lbs, with wiiiiidddde hips, gigantic thighs and calves that were equal in girth, I wanted thick arms and expansive shoulders. My breast size wasn’t the most important, it once was; when I was younger, but being athletic that subsided as long as I had my height and thick lower half. I wanted to be an Amazon Goddess. Inexplicably regal by default, indescribably gorgeous, because I would be disassociated from the norm, always the topic of discussion and different from the “average female.” That was never me and it never happened.

I have always been 5’4 and before I had children I was a natural muscular 145lbs. I was always very flat chested, but my breast were perky…they hardly bounced however, my thighs were kind of thick for my kind of short, semi-small demeanor, and well my ass was well endowed. I wore a size 11 in the 8th grade just because my bottom did not fit the normal “junior/miss” sizes like the rest of my young teenage peers. My waist/hip ratio wasn’t bad either. My waist was a 27 and my hips were a 39. I cannot deny that I didn’t have any body image issues,;obviously I used to want at least a B or C cup because I only wore an A cup for most of my life. And I DID just explain my dreams of being an Amazon Lady. So I eventually came to accept that my body was my body and embraced it. I was able to be as athletic as I wanted to be without being a spectacle for aroused people, and touching and rubbing my skin and body became something so lovely. I learned to hug and love myself as I was, but then something happened.

I got pregnant fresh into 19. I was 19 in December and by the following April I was pregnant. My rising sophomore year in college I was a mother-to-be. It did not begin as a tragedy, after trying to have an abortion in order to be able to graduate without any interruptions or issues had failed, I talked to myself; “You do want to be a mother, although it was after you graduated at least it’s not a complete mishap. Maybe this is your opportunity now.” So I went to my appointments, took my multivitamins, exercised, and ate healthier, as that’s what my cravings yearned for…since then I have only eaten fruits, veggies, seafood, and I just recently cut out turkey, it had been making me sick and giving me migraines. My actual pregnancy was very healthy. My uterus and belly grew safely and at each visit I was told that my child was very healthy. However, the further along in my pregnancy I got bigger than “normal” By week 39 of my pregnancy I was 42-44 centimeters.

Unfortunately for me, my elasticity only reached to about 38 centimeters =(. So that meant: STREEEEETCH MARKS! I should not fail to mention that is also indicative of loose skin, but before that when I was around 30 weeks or so I noticed my stomach muscles seemed to separate…What? Which shortly after that at my next doctor’s visit I was told that I suffered from diastasis recti. Whoomp Whoomp. I gave birth to my daughter, and within the next 12 months and 12 days my son was born. There wasn’t much damage done to my body this time around, as I guess my daughter took care of most of the damage; afterwards I went through what I will call a recursive insecurity. I would look in the mirror at how the rest of my body was pretty much still intact but my stomach was mutilated, my waist to hip ratio was no longer the same. I had a slight curve instead of a distinct curve, my buttocks wasn’t as firm as it once was, and now my breasts sagged. People’s compliments on how “good” I looked was given a thank you but I knew what I actually looked like. No matter how much I trained, the only thing that got better were my legs and arms, speed and flexibility, but my core remained a GUT. It took awhile for me to accept that this was now my new physique. I had to learn how to cope with the fact that the change in my body wasn’t a mature one, but an elderly one. This is no shade to women of the elderly age, but in comparison to age I felt that I should not even look this way. With much more exercise, my body toned more, my core muscles, although they remained separated, strengthened, which made me happy. Now that the working out and training began to show and prove how hard I was trying I started to like my body again. So much so that I would wear loose crop top shirts, without rushing to pull down the garment to cover up my belly, or even wearing belly shirts, even though I had on high waist pants and skirts, once upon a time I never even did THAT!

Now that I re-cultivated a love for my body, I wasn’t an Amazon Goddess like I yearned to be in my teen years, and I definitely wasn’t the petite-thick miss I used to be either, so I began to research ways to get rid of loose skin, stretch marks, and abdominoplasty was the only option for it. I consistently saw that no amount of exercise would improve it, and with experience, it isn’t. I expressed my thoughts of having the procedure done and I was a bit skeptical about it simply because of the money issue and the process of having it done. But listening to other people I got discouraged. They would say such things as: “Oh you look fine, it’s not that bad.” “Why? That’s a bit much? You look good.” “Not that Bad” Hmmph, coming from women who have bust out 5 kids and still look as if they’re body is unscathed (how they do it, idk? They must drink elasticity for breakfast, lunch, and dinner –like seriously I myself would lube up with shea butters, oils etc, and still ended up with stretch marks and the works) I eventually just let it go, because I coerced myself into believing that the money would be difficult to save, and that other people were “right” it wasn’t that bad, also I was a mother with two gorgeous children who made me happy, even when I was at my wits end, and annoyed, I had joys, smiles, giggles, experiences, and an expression of freedom that I enjoyed. But I still had an issue. It was no longer how my stomach looked. It was how my spastic core affected the rest of my body. Since my muscles are no longer aligned, I no longer have core control, and thus my equilibrium is off to a degree. I am already a bit clumsy, simple because I’m awkward, but when I dance I’m not strong. Balancing in passé is difficult as I’ve been doing it for 2 complete years, since September 2010, holding b-girl moves is near impossible. I once thought it was just not me training well enough, however I had the epiphany that my core muscles are out of whack. How could I fix it? Excessive exercise wasn’t putting them back in order, there were no magic creams to make the muscles better, so what was Mommie to do? I thought again about the “Tummy Tuck” situation, as I called it. I progressed passed the bout in vanity for it, but the fact that I was no longer able to dance and execute steps like I once was, was devastating. I felt inadequate. Not only had my dreams of being a dancer been put on hold since college, but they also seemed to be evanescent. It hurt my feelings, I was a joyous mother, but despite what other people want to believe and allow, a mother is still another person outside of motherhood. No matter what everyone was trying to dissuade me not to do, not be “selfish” to not be so vain, etc. But what they did not understand was that I want to have control over my body and be able to dance as elegantly and freely as I once did. I have yet to tell anyone that I am saving up for my first consultation as well as for my Mommy Makeover. My goals is to have my first consultation during the month of my birthday (December), and within the following 8 or 9 months to have at least one more consultation and have my surgery.

Although I am adamant about getting the surgery, I am doing my research and obtaining as much information as possible. I have essentially no support. I don’t know if being overzealous about it right now is a bit much right now. Or if I should ease my feelings of excitement while researching, I am excited because I’ve been waiting for so long and now that I’ve finally decided to do this and disregard everyone else opinions on how I should think and feel especially about my body and what I want to do. Just how scary is it? What level of apprehension happens when you’re choosing a surgeon, and what about when you’ve set a date? I have a plethora of other questions but they will come eventually.

Thank all you beautiful ladies if you managed to get through this and I appreciate your answers and support!