Recovering

It's been 7 weeks since my "mommy makeover" surgery. I kind of hate that term. Mommys are awesome and don't need to be made over. Nobody needs to do anything to their body. Lot's of women make these changes to their bodies that haven't had children. Lots of women who have had children opt to not make any changes at all to their bodies. So, let's just outline what I had done: I had an umbilical hernia (intestines coming through the hole in my abdominal wall at my belly button) repair, a diastasis recti (abdominal muscle separation) repair, an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), and a breast augmentation. I can't hang my hat on any mental illness which made me feel a need to do this surgery. No trauma (other than the trauma to my body caused by growing a human). Was it societal pressure? Nobody ever said my breasts weren't great. Scott always seemed to like them. I was able to wear normal clothing. I was able to do normal activities. They didn't need a lift. Prior to my first breast augmentation they were flat. Basically nipple on skin. I decided I wanted to look and feel more womanly. I wanted to wear dance costumes without gapping at the bust. I wanted to shop in the women's section of the store for a swimsuit. At the time, there weren't a lot of these cute online shops with "double A" sized bras. There were a few bras here and there that worked and some swimsuits that worked. Allow me to describe... When I was a teen I shopped in the childrens section of the department store. I found these lightly padded underwire type bras. I also found these swimsuit fabric tank tops to wear as "tankinis". I cut the straps off the bra and sewed it into the tankini and finally fashioned a swimsuit that fit my figure. I wore that suit until it was thread bare. I want to challenge the idea that medically changing one's body means they hated their body in its natural state. I want to challenge the idea that we, as women and particularly as mothers who, miraculously, grow humans with our bodies, birth them, and then feed them again- with our bodies, need to embrace the changes that can sometimes come to our bodies. Am I conforming to societies view of how my body should be or am I simply restoring my body to its former state? And, when a woman decides to go ahead and conform to societies view of beauty standandards and makes the choice to go beyond restoration and make changes is that wrong or bad? Are we not all conforming to beauty standards to some degree? Does the woman who opts to not shave her leg hair also allow her little chin hairs to continually grow? It's pretty complicated to recon with these choices but, here we are. I'm having more thoughts after the initial date of this post (1/2). It's 1/27. I've just attended a babyshower for a dear friend. The gals at the party were chatting about how one of them felt when her husband asked her, while rather pregnant and with a larger belly, how/why she was wearing skinny jeans. He asked the question innocently enough. He wasn't saying "you're too big to be wearing those" or "your body is gross to me know" or anything horrible. It was presented like he inteneded to ask the queston innocently but that he friend was still offended by the question. Another friend chimed in and mentioned that she posted pictures years ago and that "someone in this room" made the comment about how "skinny" she looked in the photos...that person was me apparently! I was horrified that I was being accused of something that seemed bad. I felt bad for commenting on a friends body "you were skinny" as though I implied she was smaller then than she was when I made the comment. I couldn't stop thinking about all of this...isn't being on the hill of body positivity NOT reacting to our changing size as a bad thing in ether diretion? Shouldn't it be similar to saying "your hair was so long in that photo!" and have it be innocent?