My tummy tuck Journey

I have been through a lot of life to get me to this point. I am turning 40 in September, and I’ll be starting this decade of my life as a new woman!
I had a pretty tumultuous childhood, ultimately moving out on my own when I was 16. Well, out on my own and in with my boyfriend. Well, duh, I became pregnant at 17 and then single just a few months later. My mother encouraged me to give up my child, but that just wasn’t something I could even comprehend doing. My life was harder for it, but my son is now grown and I am incredibly proud of him. But, that pregnancy is what started me on this journey.
I didn’t gain much weight at all during my pregnancy. In fact, I was still wearing my own jeans until month 7. I would rub cocoa butter on my belly just to keep from getting a stretch mark. I literally went to bed one night and woke up in the morning looking like my tummy was ON FIRE. I had bright red stretch marks from my pubic bone to just below my breasts. I cried and cried. And yup, I gained all my pregnancy weight in the next couple of months. I believe that because of how fast my tummy stretched, that is what created the initial lop of belly flub that I would forever carry with me from that time. I have given birth to 4 children over the years, and have gained and lost weight over the years as well. It was a long road to get me here.
Now, with surgery day scheduled for August 16, 2018 (child #3’s birthday), this is all about to change. I’m not expecting a bikini body at all, but I don’t remember life without all this belly flub. I can’t wait!!!

I have managed to keep myself very busy so I haven’t had too much time to dwell on how nervous I am becoming. I am having more done than the average bear tomorrow. I am actually having 4 surgeries by 3 different surgeons. I had back surgery 8 months ago to repair a herniated disk in my lower back that fixed my sciatica pain but has still left me with low back pain. I’m sure hoping that the tummy tuck will help to improve that once my core muscles are tightened back up. The surgeries I will be having tomorrow are:

1. Tummy tuck 2. Lap band removal 3. Hysterectomy  4. Bladder sling My PS and I decided to just have it all done at once to keep my surgeries down to one time. I don’t know what it will do for my recovery time, but I am guessing around 6 weeks of real down time.  I have a three year old daughter (our youngest of 7 children). We are a blended family. 3 are mine, 3 are his, 1 is ours. The rest are all teenagers and my oldest will be 22 this month - he’s married and a Marine. Regardless, we have a very busy household and I have a very supportive husband. I was working for a major university up until a week ago. I quit the job after working there for 5 years. I really think it was bad for my back. I was tied to a desk all day long. I have put on like 30 pounds in the past 5 years from it, and sitting there all day was NOT helping my back. So, I quit. I actually owned a house cleaning business prior to working at the university, so I started that back up a few months ago, and am now just taking time off until I’m good and ready to go back. I’m turning 40 next month. I’ve got a theme going in my mind - “Fabulous by 40”... ...to be continued...

Well, I’m done. I had surgery done yesterday at 7:30am. Surgery took about 7 hours. I pretty much slept all day after. I still managed to sleep off and on all night too. I have been up walking around down the hallways in the hospital. I’m very surprised at how tall I’m standing free reading about so many people that are hunched over. I got to eat yesterday, although I didn’t eat much.
I was really worried about my back hurting with all the laying down I’ve been doing, but surprisingly it doesn’t hurt much. I will be in the hospital for another couple of days.