By a Neinstein Plastic Surgery Patient
“My Kids Are Too Young and I am Too Busy”
There’s never a perfect time for surgery.
Your kids are too young, or need you too much, work is too busy, or your kids are finally older and you can travel. There are so many reasons not to go for it.
My kids are both under 3. I also don’t know if I’m done having kids. So why now? Isn’t this the worst time? Well I moved forward with surgery and it turned out to not be the worst time, at all. And now, I’m so happy I did it.
I work (out) hard and, aside from a major sweet tooth, I’m pretty good about nutrition. I would run every day (not like Dr. N at 5am, but I got it done!) but my confidence on the inside as a mom and boss didn’t match my reflection in the mirror. You can’t out Barry’s those 2 pregnancies I carried.
So why now? My kids are young. They are used to having support and people around and even sleep overs in their room. I also have a network between baby nurse help and amazing nannies who could all rotate in so I wasn’t dumping the kids on anyone including my husband or parents or in-laws. It took a village but I had the village and nobody missed a beat. My kids won’t remember and didn’t notice a thing-and therefore it was perfect.
I also may have another kid. I thought getting a tummy tuck would be a “no” until I decided what I want. I tried researching “pregnant after tummy tuck” so many times and then I went to see Dr. Neinstein. He reassured me I can have more kids if I choose – but I had bad diastasis and a hernia; was I really going to live with that for 3-5+ years while I decide what I might do? Now, regardless if I choose expand my family or not, I will have gotten this time with the body that matches my drive and energy. And I can tweak if I wish!
And then there was my job. Again, it’s never a good time. I have a big job and I’m the boss. I can’t just duck out or go silent. Within 7 days I was back on zoom calls explaining I was taking some work from home time which nobody questioned. I was back in the office week 3 (maybe too soon!) and by week 4 I was back at work dinners again- feeling confident and content that nobody really knew I had been under anesthesia.
So no, there’s never a good time. There’s never a true signal for now. But the key was getting work and my kids with support beyond what I thought they may need and have flexibly that healing isn’t linear (I stayed out of my home an extra 2 days to not be tempted to lift my kids). Go for it.