Monday 13 October 2025
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huffingtonpost - 5 hours ago

I Found The Perfect Surgeon To Do My Tummy Tuck – But I Couldn t Stop Thinking About 1 Thing

I sat on the vinyl exam table in a paper gown that rustled every time I breathed.My husband stood nearby, looking at a shelf full of breast implants beside him. He wandered over and picked one up, rolled it in his palms, and then raised his eyebrows in what could only be described as awe. I laughed.“Seriously?” I asked him.“What? I’ve always wondered what they felt like.”Then he put it down gently and sat down in the corner, grabbing the nearest object that could serve as a distraction – a Snapfish photo book labelled “Before and After.” He opened it, flipped once and then quickly shut it like the pages had burned him.“They’re real,” he said.I blinked. “What?”“The breasts in the photos. They’re real.”He looked stunned. He had been raised in a conservative Christian home and was still a little startled by skin, even after two decades of marriage.“What did you think it was going to be?” I laughed again, the way I do when he says something accidentally hilarious, equal parts earnest and bewildered. It’s one of my favourite things about him, that quiet sincerity paired with unexpected awe. He still surprises me after all these years. He looked up at me then, a little sheepish, and I just shook my head, smiling.“You’re ridiculous,” I said. But I was already reaching for his hand.The author and her husband on a recent date night.My journey to the plastic surgeon’s office had started a year earlier, the day I thought I was having a heart attack. Tight chest. Shortness of breath. And was the pain in my left arm real or just my anxiety?Tests were run and I was told it might be a clot. I recognised it as the kind that had killed a friend of mine just the year before. She was my age and also a mom of two. Healthy. Strong. I remember hearing she’d gone to the hospital and thinking, She’s tough. I’ll see her later this week. She was gone less than 24 hours later.One day she was planning college visits for her child. The next day she wasn’t there.I remember thinking, This is how I go. Turns out I wasn’t dying that day, but something in me was breaking open.What followed was a slow unravelling. High blood pressure. Hormonal chaos. Sleepless nights. A body I no longer recognised. I was living in what nobody warned me about: the middle. It felt like everything was falling apart at once. So I clung to what I could control – my body. Pounds and inches came off, but the belly stayed.And that’s what brought me here, to this quiet, sterile room with its soft lighting and stiff paper sheets. Because even after everything I’d done, that stubborn stretch of skin remained. A final fix I thought I needed to go back to myself.The surgeon came in a few minutes later. I had done my research. She was one of the best around. She flipped through my chart and asked about my goals. I mentioned that I’d been working on my health after being diagnosed with high blood pressure last year. I told her I’d been eating better, lifting weights and exercising, but I just couldn’t seem to get rid of the extra skin my C-sections had left behind.She nodded thoughtfully, then looked up from her notes and said, “Let’s take a look.”I stepped off the table and opened the robe. She touched my abdomen, gently studying the areas that I hated. Then she said, “You look fantastic by the way.” It was so offhand – not a sales pitch – just stated as a fact, and I didn’t know what to do with it.By the end of the consult, we had all the information we needed – costs, timelines, recovery expectations. She told me I was a great candidate. My husband was still quiet, watching me the way he does when he’s trying not to interfere with something private.In the car, we talked about dinner. About what we’d tell the kids. We didn’t talk about the implants, or the photo album full of breasts, but we did discuss the surgeon’s compliment. Another woman looking at the part of my body I hated the most and admiring it.Somewhere between the parking lot and home, I realised I wasn’t going to schedule the surgery. It wasn’t about the money. Or the risks. Or the weeks of limited movement. It was about something I couldn’t quite explain yet.What was the shelf life of sexy for a woman? How much longer would nice abs matter? Another 10 years, maybe, if I was lucky. But what then? Would I cut my body open again just to stay close to something unattainable?The author s daughters at Phipps Conservatory s Flowers Meet Fashion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.A decade ago, I would’ve booked the surgery on the spot. Back then, it was always the plan, once we had the money. But standing there in that room, post-midlife upheaval, I realised I didn’t want perfection. I wanted peace.We tell women they can do anything with their bodies, but we still expect them to look like they haven’t lived in them. I’m not opting out of care or confidence. I’m opting out of the belief that I need to be edited to be worthy.On the car ride home, I looked out the window and thought about how my husband still touches me like I’m beautiful. How I’ve started exercising every day, not to shrink but to remember that I’m strong. And how when the surgeon asked to see my naked body, I opened the robe without hesitation. I was proud of how far I’d come.I also couldn’t stop thinking about my daughters and what it meant to live in a body that had carried them, held them, fed them, and then electing to cut it open again – this time in the name of perfection.We’ve always raised them to believe a woman gets to choose what she does with her body. They would have supported me without hesitation. But still, I wondered what message would this send? That even strong, loved, grown women were supposed to keep chasing a shape they lost giving life? That even when you’re loved exactly as you are (and I most certainly am) maybe that isn’t enough?My apron belly is still there. It probably always will be. But for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t feel like something I have to address.I went in looking for a way to fix my body. I left with a deeper truth: It didn’t need fixing. I just needed to remember who it belonged to. My belly is the mark of the life I carried and the woman I’ve become. I’m done apologising for either.Sabine McNaughton is a full-time educator and part-time writer who explores the messy, sacred meantimes of life. She writes about midlife, education and the stories our bodies carry — with the occasional escape to the Delta Quadrant by writing “Star Trek: Voyager” recaps on her blog. Sabine lives with her husband and daughters, sings in the church choir, and believes we’re never really done learning or growing. Mostly, she tries to make sense of life on the page by telling the unpretty truth.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.Related...This 1 Type of Walking Could Be The Key For Upping Your Step CountThe 5 Body Parts You Keep Forgetting To Clean (And How Often You Should Clean Them)Just 20 Minutes Of This Hobby Could Reset Your Mind, Body, And Hormones


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