Hi all! My name is Carisa and I live in New Jersey. I'm a proud police officers wife for 4 years now and we have 2 AMAZING children! My daughter Ava is 3 1/2 and my son Joey is 22 months. My family is my WORLD & my everything and the main reason why I'm going to have VSG. I'm a stay at home mom and although everyday isn't rainbows & cupcakes I wouldn't have it any other way!

So, let me tell you how I got to where I am today. I was not overweight as a child nor a teenager. In high school i was 140 lbs throughout those 4 years. No matter what I ate I never gained a pound! And let me just tell you that I did eat everything and anything I wanted. My family is Italian and as many of you fellows Italians know, everything we do revolves around FOOD! Anyways, after high school I got into a bad relationship and I think thats when I started to gain weight. We would eat CRAP food at 3am at least 3 times a week. I was never one to work out. Honestly, I hate any kind of exercise. So anyways, I finally get out of that relationship and in the end of that I probably gained 40-50 lbs. I did weight watchers a few time but I never lost a real significant amount of weight.

Then, in October of 2007 I met my husband. By the time I got pregnant with my daughter, I was 200 lbs. (BTW, I'm about 5'6) So, while I was pregnant, I did what any other pregnant woman does. EAT! Plus, during the last 3 months of my pregnancy, I was on STRICT bed rest. When I was about 25 weeks I started going into labor. They put me on medication to stop the labor and the bed rest. They gave me steroid injections to increase the babies lung development in case she did come premature. So the bed rest didn't help the weight gain since I was only allowed to get up to go to the bathroom. Well, I gave birth on January 15, 2009 to a beautiful, healthy (FULL TERM)baby girl, weighing in at 240 lbs . I think I lost about 25 lbs afterwards. Definitely not the whole 40 lbs. Then, I tried Weight watchers ( again) , Jenny Craig, diet pills, etc. Once again, never lost anything significant. 22 months later on November 14,2010, I gave birth to my son. ( NO BED REST THIS TIME) I only gained just about 20 lbs during this pregnancy.(THANK GOD) So now I'm back to 240. So here I am, with 2 kids, heavier then I have EVER been. So again, I loose about 20 lbs. Tried weight watchers (YET AGAIN), diet pills again, jenny craig again, Overeaters anonymous, hypnosis slim fast, etc. NOTHING HELPED. This summer we took the kids to Hershey Park. I wanted to take my son a ride and they made me get off because the seatbelt wouldn't fit around me. That just KILLED me. That was, I think, the straw that broke the camels back. Obviously nothing else was working so I decided I needed to do something drastic.

So here I am, sitting here weighing 255 lbs. After going to 2 other doctors ( & seminars) I finally found my surgeon. And I LOVE HER! In the beginning, I had FULL intentions of having LapBand. However when I went to meet with Dr. Schrope (my surgeon) and she told me how much better results she has seen with the VSG and that so many people come back to her with the lapband and say " Get this out of me" and then do the VSG. There was just so many things that I really didn't want to deal with, with the lapband. The only thing I was really worried about with the VSG was the surgery itself because I've never had any kind of surgery. Like she said, if I'm going to do this, do it right the first time. So thats what I'm going to do! And I'm super excited! I'm meeting with the nutritionist next week, have to get the blood work, endoscopy, etc.

I can't wait to start my journey to my new life!! My family deserves the best "ME" , and so do I!!

Thanks for hearing my story!!

Carisa

Welcome.

Hi Carisa. my name is Kelly. I am also from NJ... We have alot of the same stats I am 5'5 and 245. I have a 3 year old and I was on strict bed rest during my pregnancy after 12 weeks. I am having my sleeve done on 12/12. Right now I am in the 3 months of seeing a nutritionist to prepare me for success after WLS that my insurance requires to approve my surgery. Where in NJ are you from? Maybe we could keep in touch and motivate eachother!

Hi Kelly! I'm in Elmwood Park. (Bergen County) I'd love to keep in touch!!

I am in Bordentown NJ... More Southern/Central... It would be awesome to keep in touch... I was going to do the Lap Band as well, before going to my consult with my surgeon I was fully set on it. Then he felt the sleeve would be good for me. I did some more research and now I am set on the VS! Do you have a surgery date yet?

Welcome! I was going to have lap-band until 45 min before surgery my surgeon talked me into VSG. I'm ssoooo glad he did. I wanted to switch over to VSG but felt obligated to have lapband as i had already started the process. I'm 9 days post op and am down 14 lbs. D oubt if i had lap band if it would be this amount...You made a good choice and won't regret it...Good luck and keep in touch!

Hi Kelly! I'm in Elmwood Park. (Bergen County) I'd love to keep in touch!!

Hi, Carisa. Welcome to this Forum and congratulation with this decision.

I used to live in Fair Lawn. but now moved to Central NJ.

Wow are we the same person??? lol. No date yet. Next week, I have an appointment with my PCP for the letter , and then the nutritionist on wed and thursday the consult for the endoscopy.

Thanks everyone!! Scorpion, I used to live in Fair Lawn as well. Actually, my parents still live there and I graduated from FLHS!

Welcome Carisa! Congratulations on your decision =) Keep us updated on how things go!

Welcome! I was going to have lap-band until 45 min before surgery my surgeon talked me into VSG. I'm ssoooo glad he did. I wanted to switch over to VSG but felt obligated to have lapband as i had already started the process. I'm 9 days post op and am down 14 lbs. D oubt if i had lap band if it would be this amount...You made a good choice and won't regret it...Good luck and keep in touch!

Where is central NJ are you from? I grew up in Hamilton/Yardville but now we live in Bordentown.