If this is your first mommy makeover surgery review post to stumble across, I suggest you start with part 1.
At my 4 week post op visit, I was doing so much better! 5 weeks, I feel like, was the magic number to feeling normal, being able to sleep on my side again and basically resume life as usual. I didn’t start working out again until 6 weeks and that felt really strange when I did any core work, and I knew to take it easy.
I had my daughter’s 10 year trip planned out to go visit my brother and his fiancee in Santa Barbara and that was really hard on me. One month after surgery is not the ideal time to be traveling and doing lots of walking. My tummy would blow up like a scary balloon and wouldn’t flatten out again until the mornings. My brother even pushed me around the Santa Barbara Zoo in a darn wheelchair because moving that much was still so painful. I tend to think I’m a badass and can do things way quicker and easier than I really can. My manager had to move around quite a few photo sessions that we scheduled a week after surgery thinking I would be great, and booking this trip was done way before I knew how I would be feeling. Even though I was still very much recovering, my daughter and I had the best time together and made amazing memories and now the 10 year trip is definitely a “thing.” Kylie’s is coming up this spring break!
Sweet Jeni went with me to a follow up visit and we left with champagne!
On to the before and after pictures, which are pretty drastic I think! From the front view, the biggest difference is the smaller implants. I am so happy I did this and love having a smaller chest. I also love how Dr. Camp didn’t try and encourage me to go larger than I wanted like I hear of so many surgeons doing. Small is the new huge! If you look at the upper portion of my tummy in the after picture, you can see a small triangular line where the loose skin is still there. I may or may not get this fixed in the future, I just had so much loose skin that it was unrealistic to get every bit of it tightened up. I really should have taken a picture of me bent over with the skin hanging low and wobbling to and fro. When I stood up it wasn’t that serious, but even bending over the slightest amount and it was shocking!
From the side view, you can really see how nicely my abdominals tightened back up after the diastasis recti repair. There is no weight difference in these before and after shots, which was also surprising! I figured I would lose some weight from surgery, but did not.
The other side, plus a clingy little toddler.
Pros and Cons of the mommy makeover surgery
Pros:
- My stomach would have never been flat again, the diastasis recti repair was key to me achieving the look I wanted.
- Lower back pain is so much better with the abdominal muscles back in place.
- Galaflex mesh makes it where I do not have to wear a bra and will help the lift to stay lifted. Remember, this is my second severe lift and the first one was really starting to sag again. It would have lasted much longer had I not had another baby and nursed for another year.
- I haven’t been this confident in a decade, and I’m already pretty confident to start with. I didn’t realize how much I tried to hide my floppy skin and poofed out belly. It’s also kept me motivated to continue with healthy eating, portion control and exercise because I want to keep this looking great!
- Clothes fit better and trying on swimsuits is actually enjoyable for the most part. I don’t have to choose my clothes based on belly hiding abilities.
- My core feels much stronger and more stable when I exercise and when I am photographing for long periods of time.
Cons:
- Recovery is a mean nasty be-otch. I knew it would be, but to live it was another thing entirely. I would shuffle around mumbling cuss words and although overall I stayed really strong mentally, I have heard many women get into a depression state with how discouraging and rough the recovery is.
- Belly button problems. Having an umbilical hernia repaired did not help my belly button situation. A few weeks after surgery it looked like this:
We were hopeful it would heal in a normal looking way, but it did not. Steven and I referred to it as a “capital Q”, “rhombus” and a “cat’s butthole” none of which are words you are typically wanting your belly button to be labeled as. He assured me he would fix it and I knew he would stick to his word, because he is a perfectionist and wants his patients happy!
3. There will always be something you aren’t 100% thrilled with. It doesn’t matter what surgeon you go to, what procedure you have done, how realistic you are, there will always be something that you thought would have been a little different or a little better. It is so important that you keep the most realistic expectations as these procedures are never perfect, complications can arise, bodies heal differently and results vary greatly from patient to patient. That being said, the one thing I don’t love, aside from my in progress belly button, is the loose skin that remains at the top of my abdomen. There is an easy procedure he can do to tighten up the top and I am very interested in it, but also not sure I want to go through any down time again or anesthesia again. I probably will, just to be done with it and move on.
One very easy revision I have had done in Dr. Camp’s office is the belly button! If you saw me this summer, I only wore high waisted bikini bottoms or one pieces, because my belly button was not pretty. It looked like this, but a little more red as the scar hadn’t faded yet:
I had one of these done before the summer started and I had another done last week. I won’t need anything else done to my belly button after this last revision heals, because I can tell by looking at it that it will be much improved and bikini ready!
This is one of the best things I have done for myself. Say what you will about plastic surgery, but it’s a multi billion dollar industry and increasing annually. I know not a lot of people speak out about it, but clearly millions of Americans are having surgeries as well as minimally invasive procedures done each year. It’s ok to not want to tell everyone you had work done, but it’s also totally ok to talk about it and trust me when I say, when you are open about your story, you will be shocked at how many other women are open about their’s! I also never thought I would consider a tummy tuck, until baby number 4 left me deflated, loose and stretched out. I’ve learned to never say never and when I get a compliment on how great my body looks after 4 kids, you better believe I make sure to tell the fellow mama that I had surgery. I don’t want anyone thinking this was achieved naturally and don’t want anyone to feel bad about their body or compare it to mine that would have never looked like this without the skill and vision of Dr. Camp. And on that note, cheers to Dr. Camp and plastic surgeons everywhere making women feel better about their bodies and restoring some of our youthful confidence that was buried somewhere inside.
