For the last month I have been seeing a postpartum physical therapist to help me navigate my diastasis. I have a whole post in the works on the exercises that I’ve been doing and the abdominal binders that I’ve been wearing, and I’ll get to finishing it eventually.
The postpartum PT has reiterated over and over again that my diastasis is not correctable through exercise and that my only option is abdominoplasty (i.e. a full tummy tuck). Usually when she tells me this I start to cry and so then she suggests that I am depressed and recommends a PPD counselor. Um, no dickhead, I’m not depressed. You just told me that my stomach is so jacked that my only option is plastic surgery. What should be my natural response? A cartwheel?
So in an effort to save my sanity, or at least not throat punch my PT, I made a consult appointment with a plastic surgeon and that consult was this morning. Now – to be honest – I really don’t want to have plastic surgery, I would rather live with a perfectly imperfect god-given body than a surgically imperfect body. Additionally, as I’ve made it known before, I’m not done having kids (or at least not done trying to have kids anyway).
The surgeon was as I expected him to be – tan, callous and emphatic over my need to have a tummy tuck. No surprises there. He said that my diastasis was of the “varsity level”, in the top 25% for the worst he’s seen. I think that’s doctor speak for “your shit’s jacked up”.
I asked about having arthroscopic surgery to correct the abdominal separation but not have skin/tissue removed and he told me that a.) he doesn’t do that kind of surgery, although other surgeons will and b.) that it would create curtains of hangy skin for me.
I’m not convinced that that’s not an option so I’ll be finding another surgeon to consult with, but that’s a story for another day.
According to him I have a lot of excess skin and extremely bad stretch marks. Now, I know my stomach is pretty beat up. But really, I don’t think my skin or my stretchies are that bad. In fact, I’m fine with them, I don’t mind living with them. It’s the poofiness and the umbillical hernia (due to the muscle separation) that I stand issue with.
As he was walking out of the consult he saw my abdominal binder and laughed – “oh, you wear a splint? You can just throw that thing out. It won’t do anything for you, that is unless it makes you feel better wearing it.”
So I guess I’m back to square one, or maybe it’s square negative four. Cause I feel even more defeated than I did before. I know I am only 5 months postpartum, but I still look pregnant. I know that I have to give myself more time to recover, but I still look pregnant and the “professionals” keep telling me that this look is permanent. When I don’t wear a binder my stomach slowly distends to the point that I have a belly similar to what I looked like around 14 weeks.
And I’m frustrated, self-conscious and sad about all of this. And those feelings have nothing to do with my children or my love for them.
So without further ado – here is my belly at 5 months postpartum. I will continue to do the exercises and wear a binder and the like, because I don’t know what else to do. Regardless, I am giving myself until October (nine months in, nine months out) to see what effect plain, old-fashioned time has on my recovery.
I’m left wondering is there such a thing as a plastic surgeon that doesn’t recommend surgery?
