Category Archives: Girly Stuff

boob jobbed

Posted on by

So, the boob job? That was yesterday.

And I am… kind of ok? I think? I was expecting it to be a lot worse, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Thursday morning, Chris took me to the plastic surgeon’s office. They have an in-office surgical suite, no hospital stay required. Once the nurses brought me back, Chris left and went to work – his office is only a few miles from the doctor’s office, so the plan was that they’d call him while I was in recovery, he’d come collect me, get me settled at home, and my mom would come over to baby-sit me for the afternoon.

Most times that I’ve had some kind of procedure done, it’s always the waiting part that’s the worst. But Dr. Diehl (who I love, btw) only schedules one patient at a time, so there’s no waiting around. There were four women in the surgical suite: Dr. Diehl, her nurse, the anesthesiologist, and her assistant. And me (so I guess that makes five total). And that’s it. They got me changed into a gown, gave a pee sample (no, really, I swear I’m totally not pregnant), and started my IV.

I talked with Dr. Diehl about how we had discussed the size I wanted, but I was afraid of them being too big, so I asked her to use her judgment and go smaller if necessary because (in my oh-so-classy way of phrasing it), “I don’t want stripper boobs.” She said there would be four women in the OR, and that while I was still unconscious, she’d prop me up and everyone would give their opinion on whether or not they were the right size, evenly matched, needed a little tweaking, etc. Which sounds totally weird, but it was oddly reassuring. It’s not a case of “this size implant, shove it in, stitch up, done,” it’s more about everyone evaluating and giving their honest opinion on what would look best on my body. That made me calmer.

As soon as the IV was finished, I walked into the operating room and got myself settled on the table. I was talking with them about something – I don’t remember what – and I turned to the anesthesiologist and said, “Oh, you gave me the sleepy drugs, didn’t you? I can feel that.” That’s the last thing I remember.

The next thing I remember was Chris walking into the recovery room, which I thought was weird. I had assumed they’d wait for me to wake up before they called him, and it would take him at least 15 minutes to get there. Apparently they called him as soon as I was done, so he was there when I woke up. Which was nice. They gave him all of my stuff and told him to pull his car up to the front door, while they got me into a wheelchair.

The nurse asked if I needed anything, and I made an offhand comment about, “Man, I really want an iced tea.” (Mostly I wanted something cold on my throat after anesthesia, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get a caffeine-withdrawal headache.) When she was helping Chris get me into the car, she told him that I wanted an iced tea and gave him directions to the nearest fast food drive-thru where he could get one for me. (And he did, because he’s a good egg.)

I got home, crawled in bed, and slept for the next four hours. Eventually my mom came up to check on me and to try to get me to eat something. I got up and felt… sort of ok after that.

Chris came back after he finished work, and seriously, I couldn’t ask for a better nurse. He got me Chinese food for dinner (because that’s what I was craving), he cleaned the kitchen, he took out the trash and recycling, and he even scooped the cat’s litter box for me. Seriously, y’all, he’s good. (He also snuggled up with me on the couch and petted my hair while we watched TV, but he does that kind of thing regardless of whether or not I’ve just had surgery.)

When we went to bed, he made me promise that I’d wake him up if I needed to get up to pee, because he didn’t want me to try to get out of bed by myself. I initially scoffed at this (I am independent! I need no man’s help to use the bathroom!), but in the end, I did wake him up, partially because it’s hard to hoist yourself out of bed without using your arms (can’t push off anything, might strain the pectoral muscles), and also because painkillers make me dizzy and I was afraid of falling.

Today is ok. I was in a lot of discomfort when I woke up, but I’ve found that I feel better when I’m up and about – I think lying in bed makes the swelling and soreness worse. So I’m trying to stay sitting up as much as I can. And I’m regularly putting bags of frozen peas on my chest to help (which is weird). But I’m mostly ok.

And that’s it, I guess. Sorry for this being kind of long and rambly, but I’m writing it under the influence of Percoset, so there’s that.

P.S. I don’t have much to report on the results yet. I’m in a post-op surgical compression bra, and so far I’ve only unzipped it a little bit to peek. I haven’t really seen the new rack, but what I’ve seen so far is impressive. I get to take a shower tomorrow, so I’ll see the new girls in all their glory then.

boobage

Posted on by

I’ve been debating on whether or not this is a topic for my blog, and… well, here goes.

I’m getting a boob job next week.

A lot of people I know, upon hearing this, have reacted along the lines of, “What? Why? Your boobs are fine!”

You know what those people have in common? They’ve never seen me naked.

Have you seen those super-padded “add a cup size” bras? Those are all I own. So, if you think my boobs look normal, that’s why.

I’m not going to post a topless photo of myself on the Internet to prove just how much I need this, so instead, I took a picture of myself in my pajamas and just pulled my t-shirt tight so you can see exactly how much I’m not rocking up top.

Before Boobs

See? There’s not a lot going on there. Like, at all.

And I’ve wanted bigger boobs for the past 20 years, at least. For a while I thought, oh well, someday I’ll have kids and they’ll get bigger. Only they didn’t get bigger. Even after my girls were born and I thought that maybe I’d get giant nursing boobs? Nope. I went up maybe half a cup size (and that’s being generous), but that was all.

I remember trying on nursing bras in a store, and realizing they didn’t make padded, push-up nursing bras. And I cried. (Although to be fair, I’d had a baby the week before, so I cried about lots of things then.)

Perk of having had a blog for ages: I realized that oh yeah, I’ve written about this before. Key passage there:

I started thinking about how most women have at least one part of their body that they hate and obsess about constantly? Mine has always been my breasts. They’re too small, they aren’t a pretty shape, my nipples are proportionally too large, whatever. Hating my boobs has pretty much been a constant in my life since puberty. I guess I feel like this is just another way in which they’ve failed me.

They failed me twice, actually, because breastfeeding didn’t work with Lucy either. And then earlier this year, I lost over 30 pounds, which is wonderful, but I went from having pretty-much-nothing boobs to now-wrinkly-REALLY-nothing boobs.

And it’s not like I want anything freakishly large either. I want my upper body to feel proportionate to my lower body. No giant circus clown boobs. Just, I don’t know, a solid C cup would be lovely.

Chris is a typical guy, so he doesn’t really care one way or the other – boobs are boobs. But since I decided to do this, there have been so many boob-related puns lately, y’all – like he “fully supports” my decision, jokes about cups that runneth over, etc. He’s awesome, but there’s also been a lot of eye rolling happening over here.

I worried a little about how I’d explain it to Catie, because I’m so cautious about her learning negative body image ideas from me. (For example, I never tell her that I’m on a diet to lose weight, I tell her that I’m on a diet to make myself stronger so that I can keep up with her and Lucy.) So I kind of casually mentioned that you know, my boobs don’t look the same since I had kids, so a doctor is going to fix them up for me, but it’s no big deal. She kind of shrugged and said, “oh ok.” And that was that.

(Obviously, since Lucy is only two, I don’t worry about what she thinks too much. I doubt she’ll internalize any body image issues at her age.)

So, yeah. Boobs. Next Thursday, July 18th. And I am really, really excited, you guys.

And it only took 7 years

Posted on by

In May of 2006, I found out I was pregnant with Catie.

I took this picture of myself in the bathroom mirror and captioned it, “Goodbye, waistline. It’s been fun.”

Good-bye waistline, it's been fun

Almost exactly 7 years later, that red shirt finally fits again.

This is the shirt I wore the day I found out I was pregnant with Catie. 7 years and 30 pounds later, it fits again. BOOM.

30 pounds down. I’m honestly not sure what my target weight is at this point, because all of my weight is distributed differently after having kids than it was before. (Oh, hello, widened child birthin’ hips!)

At one point, my goal was to get back in my size 10 jeans. But those jeans are over 7 years old and aren’t even in style anymore. And because I’m shaped differently, they give me flat Mom Ass. And nobody wants Mom Ass. So I’m going to have to figure out some other sort of defining metric as a goal.

So, even though I don’t know the end point, I’m really happy with how it’s going so far.

digging my way out

Posted on by

Following up on that last post. I am… Well. Not better, necessarily, but ok.

I saw a psychiatrist. She’s weaning me off Lexapro, and switching me to a different anti-depressant (something called Viibryd, which I’ve never heard of, but allegedly it’s supposed to target anxiety, so: BINGO). And she also put me on a mood stabilizer, which sounds great (moods! stabilized!), but apparently it takes several weeks before I’ll start noticing that one.

Coming off Lexapro, btw, is pretty horrible. I’m dizzy and nauseated all the time. It’s like constantly having a case of motion sickness combined with the first trimester of pregnancy. No fun at all. But I think (I hope) that I’m past the worst of it now.

The doctor also told me that I need to work on establishing more boundaries in my life. Since I work from home most of the time, and then the kids are here, I don’t get out of the house often enough, and I need to work on making that happen. So I’m trying.

I saw my hairdresser yesterday, who I adore. I told her I wanted to do something different with my hair since I’m feeling so blah lately. She wisely wouldn’t let me chop it off, but she colored it a reddish-brown with gold highlights that I am absolutely in love with.

Amazing how a cut & color can improve one's mood. (And not that you can tell, but it's now reddish-brown with highlights and I loooove it!)

It’s kind of amazing how something as simple as changing my hair can improve my mood.

(But seriously, the bags under my eyes. For the love of God. If you want proof that I need more sleep, there ya go.)

Also, in the interest of “getting out of the house more often,” Kim’s daughter Jasmine (who is 16) came over and baby-sat for me last night. She played with the girls, fed them dinner, got them in their PJs, put them to bed, then she cleaned my kitchen and folded laundry. I love her. I’m going to try to see if I can get her to come baby-sit one evening a week or so, just so I can get out and have some non-work/mommy time occasionally.

And I don’t know if it was the time off from the kids, or the fact that I had a lot of fun last night, but this morning I felt great, and we got through an entire morning routine (eat breakfast, get dressed, pack lunches, off to school and daycare) without snapping or yelling at either of my kids even once. That’s kind of a miracle.

So, like I said, not really better, but ok. Hopefully I’ll get there soon.

Lucy’s day at the salon

Posted on by

Lucy is still not sleeping, and I don’t really want to talk about it because I’ll probably cry if I do.

SO! Let’s talk about Lucy’s hair, shall we?

Lucy’s hair has gone through many stages. She was born with a full head of dark hair, which is kind of amazing considering how blonde she is now.

Lucy at 6 days old

But within the first few weeks of her life, all of it fell out. And then she was bald. For a long, long time. Oh, she was so bald.

Had to take a break from packing to take the (still drippy-nosed) baby for a walk.

But then she finally grew some hair. Very blonde hair. And then we entered the phase of Crazy Bed Head.

The bedhead on this child. I cannot even.

Can we please discuss the back of Lucy's head? What on earth am I supposed to do with that???

And even when the bedhead has been tamed, she has what I can only refer to as a Baby Mullet.

After school picture day, I told her to show me how she smiled for the cameraman.

It’s bad. When Lucy sees the bottle of No More Tangles or the comb, she starts saying, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” before I even touch her.

So, I decided that was enough. I called my friend Kim, who does my hair and Catie’s. She told me to bring her in and she’d take care of it.

(I got no pictures of the hair cutting process, because I had Lucy on my lap during her haircut, and I was using my phone to show her YouTube videos to distract her. Yet another case of the second kid’s milestones passing by undocumented.)

And now, my Lucy-goose no longer has a knotted up baby mullet.

First big-girl haircut!

First big-girl haircut!

Gotta say, I kind of love it. It’s like an actual hairstyle instead of just an accidental pile of hair.

Now, if we can just work on that whole sleeping thing…

seventh and last

Posted on by

Today is my last wedding anniversary.

I mean, the last one before my divorce is finalized. It would’ve been seven years today.

It makes me unbelievably sad to think about it. It’s not that I want to stay married to Dave. I don’t. Not anymore, I really don’t.

I guess it just makes me think about the actual wedding day, and how happy we were then, and how full of hope and promise and potential we were.

Poof. Gone.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk about it for the past week or so. Then I decided that I’d had enough of my stupid moping, and I was going to do something drastic to cheer myself up when the day finally rolled around.

So I texted my hairdresser and asked her if she was working today and had any openings. She did. (Have I mentioned that I love my hairdresser? I do. And I also love her teenage daughter who babysits.)

I decided that maybe a lighter hair color would lead to a lighter mood.

Keep in mind that I haven’t colored my hair in over 10 years. This was a very, very big deal for me to decide to do this.

Before:


(Ignore the frizz, I had just worked out & showered, so my fly-aways were out of control.)

…

…

During… And let me just say, that I don’t think there has ever been a sexier photo taken of me, ever:

Yeeeeeah, baby. You know that’s hawt stuff right there.

…

…

Aaaaaand, after:

I have to say, I really love it. The highlights are subtle, but they blend in my grays, and it’s enough of a change that it feels like a really big deal to me.

Overall, not such a bad way to spend my last anniversary. It was a nice distraction and has kept me from moping all day, so I suppose in that sense, it was a total success.

finding my flirt

Posted on by

So.

Ok.

This is kind of a weird topic for me to bring up, but I use my blog as a place to kind of vent whatever is on my mind, and this seems to be taking up an awful lot of my brainspace lately, so I thought maybe writing through it might help me figure some things out.

(Also, Dad? If by chance you’re looking at my blog today, stop reading now. Really. I don’t want to hear it.)

So, lately I’ve been doing a little… um… flirting.

This all started innocently enough. I have a guy friend from college who I always had a crush on, but for one reason or another, we never dated. We’ve stayed in touch off and on through the years, but in the last month or so, our texts have suddenly taken a turn for the steamy. (As in, “Damn, you text your mama with those fingers?”) Funny, considering I’ve never even kissed the guy outside of a peck on New Year’s Eve.

But, you know, he lives in another state, so it’s not like anything is ever going to happen.

Then there was another guy who I dated (very) briefly, who dropped me an email just to say he heard I was getting divorced, he’s divorced too, he’s been thinking about me… which, ok. It was a random, but totally G-rated exchange. Still, the “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately” was flattering and nice, and it didn’t come off as creepy, which I appreciate.

Then, there’s Guy #3, who, man, where do I start? We were never really a couple. I knew him when I lived in Wisconsin. I hung out with a bunch of girls there and we all had a crush on this one guy at some point. He was gorgeous, and had absolutely no clue how cute he was. (Which, seriously, is an awesome trait to have if you’re a good-looking guy. Guys who know they’re hot? Tend to be a bit on the douche-y side.)

There is no possible way to explain this and sound like anything less than a total slut, but basically: we never dated, we just fooled around a lot. Like, I don’t think we ever had dinner or saw a movie together or anything. It was just casual and fun.

What can I say? I enjoyed my 20s.

So, Guy #3 (as I’ll call him because I probably shouldn’t be posting his name on the Internet) found me on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and messaged me. Turns out he’s also in the middle of a divorce. We had some friendly “what have you been up to for the past decade?” emails. Then he started emailing me with stuff like, “Hey, remember the time we [fill in the blank with something completely X-rated that I am not about to write here]?” And the emails are… well, they’re pretty hot, I have to say.

The thing is, none of these three guys even live in the same time zone as me, nor are any of them really suitable long-term matches for me. And besides that, I absolutely do not want a relationship right now at all. I have way too much on my plate to deal with. It wouldn’t be fair to drag some innocent bystander into the chaos vortex that is my life at the moment. And it would be absolutely unfair to my girls.

Oh, and let’s not forget that thanks to ridiculously stupid North Carolina divorce laws, I can’t even file for divorce until August, so I’m still technically married for the time being.

So, nothing is gonna happen. I mean, outside of harmless flirting with guys who are all at least 1,000 miles away in one direction or another.

But, what’s interesting (to me) about all of this, is that fairly recently, I would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that I never wanted to have sex again. And something about these exchanges lately has reignited some little spark in me that I didn’t think I had anymore.

Obviously, I’m not going to act on anything anytime soon, but it’s got me thinking about the idea of “Someday.” I’ve been so caught up in trying to get through my day-to-day life, that I hadn’t really thought about the future at all. And I don’t just mean sex (although yes, that would be lovely, please and thank you). I mean the whole relationship thing. The idea that I might be willing to give men another chance is a pretty new concept for me.

So, yeah. That’s kind of weird, huh?