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It's brutal, selfish, dangerous, invasive, unnecessary, superficial, and morally questionable and yet, and yet, I will go through with it next month. I've scheduled a tummy tuck.

Now, the term, "tummy tuck" sounds cute, mild, and perhaps a little flirty. The reality is grotesque. A surgeon will cut me open from hip to hip. I will have a scar all the way across my body and around my belly button, which will be severed and reconnected. A strip of skin four or five inches wide will be cut from my body and the doctor will sew the separated abdominal muscles together and then sew the opening wound shut. There are nasty drains that will protrude from the wound for at least a week. I will be housebound for a week or more and unable to lift my toddler son for six weeks. My mother will have to come and help me, my husband will be inconvenienced, and I will not have the carefree summer I promised to have with my daughter.

Speaking of my daughter, what will I tell her? How can I nurture a healthy body image in her when I am willing to put aside my feminist ideals for my own slimmer figure? She is five. Will she be traumatized to see me come home from the surgery a temporary cripple, hunched over and unable to hug her? She has already sworn off having children after she saw me come home from the hospital, recovering from the c-section that brought her brother into the world. I don't believe in lying to her, so I think I will tell her that I am having a hernia repaired (which is true) and omit the rest of it until she is older. I hope she will forgive me for ruining her summer.

I never thought that I would consider plastic surgery for myself. I didn't grow up in a family where that was the norm, but as I grow older, I find I am less judgemental. What I would have cast aside as "wrong" or "never" 20 years ago is slowly becoming reasonable, a grey area. Everything is becoming grey.

Perhaps this is some sort of early midlife crisis. I'm 38 years old, still young enough to resent the changes that my body suffered to have children and old enough to realize that it isn't going to get any better. I gained a tremendous amount of weight while I was pregnant. I was positively elephantine. Over the course of 4 years, I gained and lost the weight twice and had two c-sections. With a lot of work at the gym, I am back to the weight I was in high school. I look fine in clothes, and when I stand up, I can momentarily forget my saggy belly, but when I sit down, the loose skin on my tummy pools over the top of my jeans. When I am bending over on the exercise bike, I can't help but grab the two handfuls of excess flesh in front of me. When I am lifting weights, it bothers me that I can't achieve the shape that I want regardless of how much time and effort I expend.

Believe me, I would not do this if I thought I could fix it on my own. This is not a quick fix or a weight loss regimen. It is a superficial and selfish act that I hope will bring me some pleasure. Perhaps this is a way for me to reclaim my individual self after becoming a mother. I can think of more enjoyable things to do but none that are more selfish. This is something that I am only doing for me. I can't remember too many things since becoming a mother that qualify. I think that many of us as mothers lose ourselves for some time after having children. This surgery will bring no benefit to anyone else except my surgeon and his pocketbook. An added layer of guilt is the knowledge of what I could be doing for the poor and hungry in the world if I were to redirect the cost of the surgery. I know that is an argument that can be made of every luxury and non-necessity that we provide ourselves, but this is a more stark example. Would the expense of the surgery feed an African village for a month? Does it make me a bad person if I needlessly spend this money on something so superficial?

Will it make me feel better about myself? I know I will not become smarter or happier or more fulfilled with a slim belly, but perhaps it will make me a little more interesting. I have been spending an inordinate amount of time obsessing about my misshapen navel in the past year and a half. Perhaps if all goes well, I will recover from the surgery and have more interesting things to think about and talk about in the future. Cheers to that.