Talk2Tamara
Hosted by therapist and coach Tamara, Talk 2 Tamara creates space for the conversations that often go unspoken. Drawing from her life as a mother, wife, and member of the Orthodox Jewish community, Tamara explores real stories, complicated questions, and the moments that shape who we are. This podcast is about naming what’s beneath the surface and making room for deeper understanding, connection, and growth — because some things deserve to be said out loud.
Talk2Tamara
Behind The Glam: Depression & Weight Loss Story | Talk2Tamara
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Behind The Glam: Depression & Weight Loss Story | Talk2Tamara
In this powerful episode, we dive deep into the untold story of Dina Stern — a successful wig entrepreneur, mother, and someone who openly shares her journey through postpartum depression, weight loss surgery, and reclaiming her identity.
Dina takes us through her incredible journey: Building a thriving wig business from her bathroom while dealing with imposter syndrome The real experience of postpartum depression — what it looks like behind the Instagram filters Her candid discussion about weight loss, body image, and getting weight loss surgery Why medication, working out, and therapy became her lifeline How she learned that fixing your body doesn't fix your mind — it's the INTERNAL work that matters Creating a toxic-free, holistic lifestyle with her husband
Key Takeaway: You can wear your Chanel, keep your gloss on, AND take medication for postpartum depression. There's no shame in seeking help.
Dina's story is for every woman who's felt invisible, struggled with their body image, or wondered if something was wrong with them after having a baby.
Connect with Dina: 📱 Instagram: @talk2tamara
🌐 Website: tamaragestetner.com
If you found this helpful, please like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
Follow Tamara on Instagram @Talk2Tamara, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for new episodes on relationships and personal growth. Watch new episodes on Youtube and visit my website for coaching and 1:1 support.
My trauma was that I felt like I was screaming and crying in this like glass box that no one can hear me. You can see that I was not okay, but like no one's listening to me, you know. And like six months postpartum, I couldn't walk. Um, I was in a wheelchair, I couldn't eat, I was in bed, even though on Instagram it looked like I was going out here doing their like if I went for a manicure, I went straight back home. My clothes came off, my wig came off, the TV turned on, and I was just in bed.
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Tamara, a therapist and coach that's exploring relationships, emotional health, faith, and real life challenges that many of us were taught to keep private. Together, we'll talk honestly about the questions, the struggles, and experiences that many of us carry quietly and finally give them a place to be spoken out loud. You are listening to Talk to Tomara. Hi, everybody, and welcome back. Today's conversation is one that I think so many women are quietly living through. The idea that if we just fix our body, then everything else is gonna fall into place and we're just gonna be magically happy. But what happens when you actually do it and it still doesn't fix how you feel? Today, I'm sitting down with Dina Stern. She's a business owner, a mom, and someone who has been very open about her journey through postpartum depression, the medication she went on, and her lifelong relationship with her body. She built a successful wig line while also navigating becoming a mother and making big decisions about her health. And today we're talking about what that actually looked like from the inside. Dina, thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. This is so exciting.
SPEAKER_00I know. This is really, really great. So before we get into everything, can you tell us like a little bit about your life, your life today and what it looks like, like from your date, from your day today?
SPEAKER_04So I grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Um, I have three sisters, and fashion and hair and beauty was definitely um part of our lives. And we always like fought with each other about our clothing, stole each other's clothing. Um and as I got older, when I was in eighth grade, as I got older, as I was in eighth grade, I vividly remember um my mother calling me and telling me that my grandmother got diagnosed with cancer. And um she had stage four geoblastoma, which is um a tumor in the brain. I don't know exact details, but um, and I also tried to stay out of it as much as possible. Um, but she lost her hair really quickly and um she was declining really quickly. Um, she was in a hospital and she was really immobile. So I used to go to the hospital, take her wigs, bring them home, style them, bring them back. Um, and I slowly built this love and passion for hair, like hair accessories, um, hair styling. And then I did it as a hobby. Um, I went into the cash advance business because everyone was doing valve. Oh, really? I didn't know. Um, and I it was not for me. Um, and then I started working for my dad and I was doing real estate, and that was not for me. And then I was working for another broker doing real estate, and I was like, you know what, like let me go into this here world. Let me dip my toes in and see. Um, and slowly but surely I took a course. Um, and then I was actually I was living in my parents' house in the first floor in the guest room, and I had my own bathroom, and I just started like a small Instagram and I was doing hair only, not wigs. And I had customers that were coming in, sitting in a plastic folding chair in my bathroom, like my shower, my sink, and I was styling, curling their hair. Um, and then slowly it turned out. Um we started turning it into wash and sets. We, it was literally just me, like a 16-year-old girl. Yeah. I was still in high school. Um, and we we I was doing wash and sets in my bathroom, and then I was also um doing pick up and drop off. Um, so I would pick up a wig from a customer, drop it off, and just really um getting the the whole experience of hair and styling. Um and then it slowly went into me working for different wig companies. Um I worked at Chevy Wigs. I worked there for about a year and a half. Um, I worked at Hani Kramer, I worked at Ita Popak, and then after all those experiences, I was like, I'm hustling for everyone else, and I'm working so hard for everyone else. Let me do this for myself. Um, I had imposter syndrome. I had a really hard time with the idea that people would come out for me. People would come purchase wigs from me, um, repair their wigs by me. Um, and I did a lot of work, energy work. Um, I had someone that I was working with, and slowly, slowly it was building up. Um, but my Instagram was building faster than my business because it was so slow. I put in like a massive order first um for when we made wigs. And then um, yeah, our Instagram just blew up like so quickly. And now thank God we have a whole business. We sell wigs. Um, we make wigs for celebrities, cancer patients, um, just your average woman with hair loss or that just wants a little bit more oomph. Um, and in the third year of my business, I got pregnant, I had a baby, and it was like all downhill from there. Um I actually I did know that having PCOS definitely affects fertility. Um I didn't even want to go down that route. So I and I was also struggling heavily with my weight, and it was really weighing on me, pun intended. Um so I got myself um I got myself Manjaro and every month I was building up different um different doses. I went off it and thank God we were able to have our baby. Um I definitely know that the Manjaro helped. Um we didn't really saying I don't really know any other, you know, um, but that really helped. Yeah, so I was on Manjaro for um like six months. I lost 80 to 90 pounds and then uh we got pregnant. So I went from having I went from having no cravings at all, eating bare minimum, to pregnancy cravings right away. Right. We it was like crazy on my body. I gained so much weight so quickly. Um, I know that I had gestational diabetes, but my doctor told me that I didn't. Um, and I even passed, they made me take the second sugar test, and I passed the sugar test. So, how is that possible? When my baby was born, his sugar levels were so so high that they told me that I had gestational diabetes. My baby was born 11 pounds. Wow. Yeah. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah. How did your doctor let you go to that to that weight? Like that's very scary.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, he kept telling me, so I was at this practice with three different doctors, and um, the main doctor, I didn't really see him anymore until after the first initial consultation. I feel like he like lured me in, got me as a client, and then never saw him again. Um yeah. So the second doctor, um, he told me he's like, you have enough fat on your body. Um, so you shouldn't be gaining weight while you're pregnant, which is a a crazy thing to say to someone. B, um, he was right that like there was no need for me to gain weight, but like they didn't know the whole backstory.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, and he didn't really tell me anything about it being dangerous or any any of that. And also, I was a young, I'm saying I'm a young girl, like I don't know, you know, so much about this. My mother knows that weight is a very sensitive topic for me. So she tries to um either say it gently or not at all because she knows that it's really triggering for me. Um so and my husband would never, so yeah, yeah. I was like kind of like living my best life, gaining so much weight. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I um I relate to that so so much because weight has always been an issue for me. And, you know, I I like struggled with that, and my family would would also like not, you know, try to say things in like gentler ways, you know, but I knew what they were trying to say, you know. So I could only imagine leaving leaving the doctor's office after he told you something like that and like probably feeling feeling like crap. Yeah, you know, like it's not a great feeling.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I remember also right near the doctor's office, there was this pizza store. So every time we would go to our appointment after we would go to this pizza shop, and I would always get pizza on fries. And then I remember I was maybe 36 weeks or 37 weeks pregnant, and I went to the doctor and he did a scan. I think at that point he was like, Your baby is extremely large. You're gonna be delivering C-section, the C-section route. Um, and if you eat like another bagel of uh carbs or sugar, you're gonna go into labor tomorrow and it's not gonna be pretty. So I think at that point, like that really freaked me out. Um I was like already at the end of my pregnancy. Yeah. Um, I'm like, I'm already, we're already big and we're already there. So um I remember after that not going to the pizza store and not getting um the pizza and fries. But um yeah, I think like that was if I if I could look back and see the miss, I want to call it a mistake because it was really like a lesson that I learned. Um it's not you're pregnant and you can eat whatever you want because it does affect your labor and pregnancy, and it definitely affects your postpartum.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, can you talk a little bit more about your postpartum experience? You kind of mentioned that everything went downhill after having your baby. So, what so what was your experience like?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I haven't spoken about this in a long time. It's like bringing up stuff. Um so after I had my baby, um, I had a four-degree tier. He was born naturally. Um, I had a 27-hour labor. My epidural stopped working um as I was pushing. I had the most incredible, incredible doula that if it wasn't for her, I probably would have not been alive today. Her name is Hani Gordon. She's excellent, excellent. Um she knows that she we have a written contract for for life for the future movies. Um I, when I was in labor, um again, I had this team of doctors. Now I was young and it was in this ratchet hospital. They don't tell you much. Like I had no idea that there's doctors from the hospital that are not in the practice, um, which I never met before. They're coming in, they're they're your legs are wide open. Like you want to be familiar with the person that you were seeing your whole pregnancy. Um, so what happened was I had this doctor that um she came in and also I didn't know when the time for pushing was, and they just said it's gonna feel like you need to go to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, after many hours of hell of pain with contractions, I was like, oh my God, this is it. Like, you know, this is it. And I call my husband, I'm like, Mendy, can you go get the doctor? Um, and at that point, it was um Friday night, Shabbas started, and um my mother was actually there, and we had planned, my mom had planned to have like a whole um, we had like 40 people in our house, and my my mother dropped everything and she was with me in the hospital. Um, and the doctor came in and um it was very like chaotic. There were a lot of things going on, a lot of yelling, a lot of noise. And um, Hani Maidula, she's like, if you're gonna come into this room, you have to be calm and you have to whisper. And she was telling this to every nurse, every doctor that was coming in. We had um fake candles that we put out. She was playing like spa music. And um, so this this doctor came in. Um, I'm ready to push, and a nurse came in yelling to the doctor. I guess she was the only one on the floor. Okay, and there weren't so many women that were going into labor. She started yelling at the doctor. She's like, I need you to come here to the other room. A woman is she needs emergency C-section. So I'm like, my I need to start pushing, and there's no doctor. So um Hani gets to the bottom of the bed, the the foot of the bed, and my mother is standing there, and Hani's directing me. And it was just a lot of yelling, a lot of chaos. Um wow. We just like felt like we we were like, what is happening? Like, I was like, what is happening? Um, thank God uh someone came in. Uh um she's not a she wasn't a doctor or nurse. One of these midwife, maybe something. She came into the room and she basically took control and she's like, This is what's gonna happen. And I pushed and pushed, and after 45 minutes, my baby came out. Um, but my the last push was so hard that um I started hemorrhaging with my baby. And again, I lost so much blood, I had no idea what was going on. Um, as soon as the baby was born, all the students came into the room. So, like I'm looking around and I just see like 20 to 30 people like come in, and one person's holding a blanket, another person's holding a suction thing, this, and there were just so many, like, I didn't even have like a second, and um the doctor, she's like, we have to rush her to the OR. So they took my baby from me, they unclicked the wheels, and they started running to the OR. Um, I actually had my phone under my hip the whole time. So I was taking pictures, and you're not allowed to have your phone in the OR, but I literally have pictures of and they were live photos, so you hear like this screaming. How did you have the mental capacity to like take your phone? Oh no, I don't even know. I don't even know. And I'm on the bed, and all I hear is and and side point, this it's a hospital in Long Island and it's a teaching hospital. So everyone that was working in the OR were students, and there was a room on the side with, I guess, a teacher slash doctor. Um, and anything that they were doing, they had to yell out to the doctor to basically tell the doctor what was going on. And I'm just hearing like she's losing a lot of blood. Um, we need more packing. She she has like 35 stitches, it doesn't stop. She, and then like her IV is falling out of this arm. And I had a nurse on this side, a nurse on this side. Um, and um, I just kept hearing like her numbers are dropping, her numbers are dropping. And I took my nails and literally till today, like I have extensions because of this. I literally took my nails and I was digging it into my arm to keep myself like like here and like with it. Um, I lost, I needed four blood transfusions and two iron infusions. I lost a lot of blood. Um and then after they they stitched me up, they uh they wheeled me out. I had no idea what was going on. Um, I saw my baby. I remember feeling like I was in this cloud. Like I felt like I was watching myself on a table. Like an out-of-body expensive. Yeah. Um and my husband was sitting on a chair the whole night and for the whole two rest of the two nights that we were there. Um, I remember it was the Super Bowl, and I was watching the Super Bowl from my uh hospital room, getting blood transfusions. I came home at that point. Like, I think now when I when there's a certain like setting in my house that reminds me of the day that I came home from the hospital, it like really brings me down. Um that's why I like try to change. I got like new pillows on my couch. I tried to like change up a little bit of the furniture, the colors, the smells. Um, it was extremely traumatic. I came home and I had this baby, and I was scared to be alone with the baby. Um I didn't know what to do with this thing. I needed to take care of myself. Um, my mother and my sister, they were incredible. They made me dinner every single night for two months. They were there every single day. Um, so I had a live and nanny. Um in the beginning, it was supposed to be for just six weeks, six weeks by night, like as a night nurse. And then after the whole this, my whole labor happened, um, I remember sitting in my hospital room and I texted the nurse. I was like, Can you come full time for the next six weeks? And she said, Yeah, thank God. Um and we had a nurse, and I so what happened was um I literally haven't even spoken about this since I'm like, Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um did the post do you think because you talked about the fact that you you suffered from postpartum depression, do you think that it was triggered from the trauma that you experienced?
SPEAKER_04I definitely do. A big point, actually, thanks for asking that because it brought up another thought. So a few days after I came home from the hospital, every time I sat down and walked and all that, it was extremely uncomfortable. And my mother, I told my mother, I said, Ma, like this is my first time giving birth, but something feels wrong. Now, my doctor gave me medication for like iron medication, yeah, but he never told me that you need to take a uh stool softener with it. Okay. And I've never taken these medications in my life. Like I've always been, yes, I've always struggled with weight, but I've never had anything wrong with like my hormones or or or balancing issues. Um, so I was just taking iron like I think it was already like a week by itself. And I remember Friday night, I was having a really hard time going to the bathroom. It was extremely painful. I hurt, I felt like a tear and my stitches tore open. Um, and then I ended up having like a hot seller member come to my house and and help me out. I didn't want to go to the hospital. It was like just too much for me. I was already like I had so much going on. So I was like, I'll go into bed and I'll he like did what he had to do. A few days later, I called my mother and I told her that something's wrong. Um, she's like, Okay, so let's go back to the doctor and let him see your stitches and talk to him. Um we went back to the doctor and I'm sitting there. He's looking at my stitches and he's like, Yeah, your stitches tore open. And um, the hotel member that came to see my stitches, he said, It looks like a three-year-old stitched you up with their eyes closed. Like they, yeah. So he's like, Obviously, your stitches tore open, and they're not supposed to ever. They're so strong that like they shouldn't. Um so my mother was just having a conversation. Like it started off as like a very calm, like, why weren't you at her Libra? Um, and I understand that if you weren't there, then there's two other doctors at your practice that should have been there. Um, and not only that, one of the doctors lied to me as I was in Libra, telling me that I was nine centimeters dilated. And then another doctor, his shift, it was such a scracha practice. His shift ended. Yeah, and the next doctor came in like five minutes later and she checked me, and I was only three centimeters, and he wanted to give me pitocin and like fasten up the process. Us. So she was just stating, my mother was just stating facts to this doctor. And he was very defensive, started yelling at us. Um, mind you, I'm sitting there, him looking at me with my stitches. Yeah. Very vulnerable. I start crying. My mother is like, How can you take care of a patient like this and just like let her figure it out on her own? Um, and he's like, Get the hell out of my office. I don't want to see any of you ever again.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Um wow. And I think at that point, like you ask me if if my postpartum depression comes from my experience. I think this really did play a big role in my trauma, was that I felt like I was screaming and crying in this like glass box that no one can hear me. You can see that I was not okay, but like no one's listening to me, you know, and like here I am coming back to the source who's able to help me. And he just like one week later shuts me down and kicks me out.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah, that definitely added to the whole experience. Wow.
SPEAKER_00And how and how did you know that you had postpartum depression?
SPEAKER_04So being that I had a live in nanny, um, things started getting like easier in the sense of like, oh, this is actually working, like maybe be sleeping and eating and and drinking bottles. Um, and I remember everyone, um, the number one thing that people tell you is, oh, you're not sleeping, so you're you're probably so tired.
SPEAKER_00Your hormones, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But I kept trying to justify that by saying, I am sleeping. I'm actually sleeping great because I have a night nurse. So um, I don't know, something's wrong. And then I started getting these crazy headaches. I was driving, I remember once I was driving on a highway in Long Island, and I got this bashing headache in my head that I started swerving and I ended up on the side of the grass. Oh wow. Um, and I caught my husband and I was like, I don't know, something is really wrong. Maybe there's I I I thought it was, God forbid, cancer. Um, I went to different doctors, I went to a neurologist, I got an MRI, nothing in the MRI. Um, I was getting blood work literally between one once to two times per week. Um, and they kept running my labs and there was nothing wrong. Maybe there was like a few things up and down. Um and I was ready two months postpartum. It was pace off. We went you were there. We went to I don't remember you having like an issue there. Yeah. Um we went to um Mexico, was not able to walk. I barely left my hotel room. Um I was petrified beyond to fly with my baby to be taking care of my baby. It was the first time that I wasn't gonna have a night nurse. Um, I remember having all this like panic in my head of like, what's gonna be? You're gonna have to wake up in the middle of the night. You don't know how I didn't even know how many ounces my baby was drinking. I didn't even know how often. I was so detached from my baby that I almost like he was like the the the nurse like he was the nurse's baby, and I had him like a few hours here and there during the day. Um, I was so out of it. And my husband kept saying, like, Dina, you know what Hannie said, you're do l, your mind heals faster than your body, stay in bed, stay in bed. And I didn't, and I would go do get a manicure, go out of my house, and then it definitely caught up to me. Um when I came to Mexico, I started feeling really faint. Um, and I wasn't able to do normal things, like I wasn't able to go to the buffet and put food on my plate. I wasn't able to walk from my hotel room to the lobby without feeling like I'm gonna fall. Um and I and I told my husband, I said, like, what if something is really wrong and we're in Mexico and like we need a hospital. Yeah. Um, and the first night cedar, I couldn't sit at the table. I remember I kept falling to the side, and my mother's like, you need to go back to your room. And she brought me back to my room and I started hemorrhaging again for the second time in um my hotel room. I now I'm two months postpartum, I don't have a doctor. I don't have an OB because I got cooked out of my other one just for no reason. So I called my family friend who is a family doctor, and he was kind of like calming me down. But I'm like, this is not an ordinary case of a woman going into labor, hemorrhaging, all of that. This is my second time hemorrhaging. Um, I'm in a in a third world country. Um, I need help. And I ended up going to the hotel, had like a could I curse? I don't know, a bullshit doctor. I remember that doctor like with like an Amazon folding table. And he's like, You need to go to the hospital right now. And I was like, hey, sir, calm down. Um there was actually a kid that ended up flying out um from the program on like a hotzala airplane. I was so close to going on that plane home. I was really not okay. And then from the first night cater, I would leave the room for like a few hours at a time, but like sit more than walk, like outside. I was never in the sun. Um, and then I really haven't thought about this in so long. Wow. And then I came back to my hotel room and I it was just more daily things were happening, like regular daily life things were not working out for me that I knew something was was really wrong. And when I came back to New York, I told my husband, I said, like, we need to get down to the bottom of this. And it was just doctor after doctor. I remember just crying after every appointment. Like, why can't someone figure out what the hell is going on with me? I called my mother up, and my mother was like, Maybe you have postpartum depression. Now I remember postpartum depression for me was is this stigma in my head of there's something wrong with you. You um are not capable of taking care of yourself. Where did you learn that from? Just society. I just I just felt like that's that's what it was. Barely any woman struggle with it. So, like you're the one out of a hundred. And um, I kept like gaslighting myself. And I remember when my mom told me that on the phone, like instantly I snapped at her. I started screaming at her on the phone. I was screaming and crying, and I was like, How dare you say that to me? Um, and I'm like my mother, my mother is the one that saw me go through hell, and here she is telling me, maybe I have postpartum depression. Why isn't anyone listening to me? Even my own mother, and she was right the whole time. Anyways, I was still going to different doctors after six months, literally, of just searching and searching. I went back to my primary doctor in Crown Heights, and I sat down with him and I brought all my paperwork, all my labs, all my appointments. He was sitting there and just reading it for like five full minutes. I was quiet in the room, and he looks at me, he takes his glasses off, and he's like, Honey, you have postpartum depression. Wow. And I was like, No, I don't. And he's like, You have postpartum depression, and it's okay. I said, No, I don't. He said, Let me tell you something. I'm gonna prescribe you medication. Now, as soon as he started saying that, I'm like, No, no, no, no, I don't. And he's we're fighting. And I was like, and he's like, he literally took my wrist. He's like, stop arguing with me. I'm gonna give you something for the next two months. After two months, I want you to come back. If you don't feel any better at all, I promise you, I don't even know what he promised me, but um, I was like, okay. Now at that point, I was they had to wheel me in a wheelchair from the waiting room to his room. I couldn't walk. This is six months. This is six months postpartum. I couldn't walk. Um, I was in a wheelchair, I couldn't eat. My husband was making me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What he would have my nanny bring it to me to my bed. I was in bed, even though on Instagram it looked like I was going out here doing their like if I went for a manicure, I went straight back home. My clothes came off, my wig came off, the TV turned on, and I was just in bed.
SPEAKER_00What do you say to that to people who look at Instagram and like think you know everything is great?
SPEAKER_04It's Instagram is is is it's bullshit. You know what I'm saying? Like it's I love my page and I really do try to stay true to who I am. Yeah. But if I'm having like a virus and a big pimple on my face, like, am I running to post that? No. Right. You know what I'm saying? Um, and people on on social media look, we follow other accounts as an outlet. And you like when I look at some creators that I follow, I live vicariously through them. You know? So everyone is definitely um filtering what they put on social media. I I think the reason why I'm here today is because I I am trying to be true, stay true to who I am, and I say the truth and what I'm going through. So yeah, even though it looked like I was going shopping after I was I came home and my legs were shaking and I probably almost fainted and I went into bed, and that's it. Um, not only that, my immune system got shot. So every single week, I would say like even twice a week, I was getting sick with something. So I got the norovirus, I had the flu, I had food poisoning. I was in the hospital again for food poisoning. Yeah. Um me and my friend both ate the same food, and I ended up in the hospital. I got every disease possible, every sickness possible. And I really worked and continued to work on my immune system. Um, and so he when I went to my doctor, I was in the worst place. And he told me, he's like, You're gonna take this medication, it's not gonna work right away. Um, it takes a month to see a difference. And I was like spiraling in my head. I came home, I spoke to my husband about it. My husband was like, Tina, it's okay. Let's not go on Google, let's not go on Chat GBT because we're gonna go even more crazy. And it was just so special. And I feel so lucky that he he's never experienced postpartum depression either. You know, and the fact that he was able to be the strong one when I wasn't and walk me through that um and help me be calm was really it was really a blessing. Um, I didn't sleep for not a minute that night. Not a minute. My I didn't even look at my phone. My head was just like this for the whole night. Um I remember I kept thinking to myself, I'm crazy, I'm different, um, I'm so sad. This is I'm I'm I'm gonna end up on the streets like a drugie, like, and and like I'm like, hey Dina, calm down, like relax.
SPEAKER_00Did you grow up with the stigma of taking any sort of medication? Because even like nowadays, anxiety meds, depression meds, like it's it's pretty popular. It's not something that like nobody does. But I'm wondering if maybe the way that you grew up, it was just not part of your culture.
SPEAKER_04I would say it wasn't, it wasn't like a hush-hush thing growing up. It was more we weren't exposed to that. Like we never, no one in my family, thank God, has ever had any issues with this stuff, any medication stuff. So it wasn't like this is what's happening, don't tell anyone, or like, oh, this person's taking this, I can't believe it. It was, I would say my parents really kept us like ignorant to it, and I'm grateful for that. Um, but I at the same time, I was really spiraling. I was like, there's something, what's going on? Like, what's wrong?
SPEAKER_00You know, and also seemed um to some to some extent that you were very in tune with your body. Like you really felt like something was wrong, and you were in tune to what was going on. There are people that are just not in tune to the to their body and like what it needs.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I remember um actually so funny. I remember your husband was when we were at the program in Mexico. I was sitting, my husband was standing online to get a coffee, and your husband was in the line waiting for a coffee. And I just remember looking at everyone in the line, and I'm like, they're so lucky to be able to stand in a line to get coffee.
SPEAKER_00Little did you know that my husband was crazy sick on that vacation. Like sick the entire time, went to that same doctor that you went to. So it's just funny that, like, you know, what you see in front of you is not necessarily what's like real.
SPEAKER_04Mind you, I don't even know if I should say this. I can say it. I'll say it, but I might like get some blowback for it. There was um a girl on the program who does work for the doctor that I went to. She's a nurse at his office. Oh wow. And um, when I was hemorrhaging again, I remember um my husband and my father went to go get her. And she was like, sorry, I'm with my kids. Like, um, I'm not like very like hoty tati. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Like, I'm dying here, literally. And then she like came and she made it seem like she was doing me a service.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_04Wow and like I get it, you're on vacation. Yeah, but you're not at work, but and you're in the house this is your practice, yeah. This is your not only that, I also emailed the doctor because he doesn't do, he doesn't give out his phone, no problem. I emailed him, and his response was um, when the body doesn't follow what the body needs to do postpartum, then the body won't um heal. Wow. And I'm like, are you kidding me? What type of answer is that? This is not like a riddle. Yeah like like help me. Like, what should I do now? You know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And almost like they're like blaming you for your postpartum situation. Yeah. You know, when really it has nothing to do with with you. Yeah. So did you find that after a month of being on the medication that it actually helped and you started to feel like back to it back to yourself?
SPEAKER_04So after a month, um, I started to feel definitely a little bit better. I would say it took like for me, it took two months maybe to feel um like a lot better. And like that, along with working with my therapist, I just kept thinking to myself, like, I can't wait for the day that I could just walk from my house to my parents' house on the next block in Crown Heights without feeling faint. I just can't wait. And at that point, like I was and I was able to, and then it slowly turned into giving my baby a bath, and then it turned into taking my baby for a walk. Um being alone with him for more than a few hours. Um at eight months is when I was like, okay, we don't need a night nurse anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, I think that's when I was fully able to hold the harnesses and like take control. Yeah, it was definitely, it's definitely a journey, like it was a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. That it sounds crazy. Yeah. Um, and now I just want to switch gears for a second um to go into the other uh reason why you're here um and what you talk about online is getting the gastric sleeve, um, which you did how long ago?
SPEAKER_04So I did it at the end of November. Okay. Um because I was on Minjar before I got pregnant, I have never felt so good about myself. I think there is a, there's definitely this energy around when you feel good, you look good. Um, it was for myself, not for anyone else. I personally love clothing. I'm obsessed with clothing. I love color. Amazing fashion sense. Thank you. So I I feel like my personality shines through my clothes and also my mouth. But um both are good. Yeah. So I I remember like when when my pregnancy was going through the months, and then after postpartum, I was literally wearing the same dress in four different colors. Uh, and I knew the black one would hide more everything than the beige one, and beige wasn't my color, but it was the only thing that they had on my side. And like literally, yeah. So that's like I was just juggling between four of the same dresses. Um, Shabbos would come. My feet were only able to fit into the same pair of sneakers that I wore every single day in my pregnancy. I remember that I kept holding on to this feeling of my Manjaro days and um feeling good about myself. And I knew and I told my husband, I said, I know that I'm gonna be doing something. I'm just not sure what. Right.
SPEAKER_00Why not go back on you know, a GLP one or something like that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So if I'll tell you, a few months after I gave birth, um I had my first gallbladder attack. Um, I didn't know it was a gallbladder attack. It it literally felt like Libra again. Yeah. Um, I don't know if you know anyone that has had it or if you had it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I've had it removed also, my gallbladder, um, right after I had my my fourth baby. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I didn't know that it actually could come from from um from birth, from childbirth. You could develop stones. And so I also I never had a surgery in my life. I've never gotten stitches before all of this. So I was really afraid of the hospital, of needles, of this like threw you into it. Yeah. I so I felt like I got cornered into it. Um, literally, someone's like coming up to me with a gun, like this is gonna happen, and you have to get your gallbladder removed. So I went to the most incredible doctor, Dr. Bessler, in Lenox Hill Hospital in the city. Um, I went to him. He's definitely a little egotistical. And if you're watching this, um, but he knows his shit and he knows exactly what he's doing. And um, the people that I know that have gone to him have zero complications. Um he gives it to you exactly the way it's gonna be, and he answers all your questions. Um, and I basically looked at him and I was like, wait, if I'm removing my gallbladder, could I remove my stomach also? Like, he's like, Yeah, sure. Like he so he like tells, he's like, okay, Genesis, write it down. She's removing her stomach also. We're doing the gastric sleeve. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. And my husband and my husband's in the room. He's like, wait, can you give us like 10 minutes to talk? Like, can you go out of the room? And so he's like, Yeah, take all the time you want. They walk out of the room, and my husband's like, Are you sure you want to do this? And I was like, I told him, I said, you know, Mendy, like, I've struggled with weight my whole life. I've gone bullied for it since I was a little girl. Um, I know that it's not uh uh forever, it's a tool to help me get to where I want to be and to sustain a uh weight that would that I would feel comfortable in. Um I don't feel comfortable the way I look. Um I'm over 240 pounds and I need to do something about it. And I don't want to do Manjaro again because look at what happened when I took Manjaro. You gained it, and then I gained so much weight again after that. It just I think that's definitely part of the reason why I had such a hard labor was because my baby was so big. And if I wouldn't have got gained so much weight, you know, right? It's just a trickle effect. So um I ended up actually finding a really good OB in Long Island, Dr. Petrakovsky. Excellent, excellent guy.
SPEAKER_00Wow, it's so funny that you come to Long Island from Brooklyn. We go to Brooklyn or the city.
SPEAKER_04He's actually um one exit after the other OB that I went to. So it's definitely like it reminds me every time I drive down the highway. Um so I was, I went back to him and I was like, Can, you know, does this affect fertility? How does this work having the sleeve surgery and having children and my gallbladder removed? And he said, Well, listen, firstly, um having stones can come from um delivering a child. So he's like, if you get you, you need to get your your gallbladder removed anyways. Then he told me he said, I have so many patients that have had a sleeve or weight loss surgery, and especially with women that have PCOS, it helps them get pregnant. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I was like, um, okay, great. Um, I went back to Dr. Bessler, the surgeon, and I um scheduled in my appointments. I saw you have to see a psychiatrist, you have to see the nutritionist, you have to go on these group classes. Um, and it wasn't like a one, two, three thing. It was like six months, six to seven months building up to basically get all your appointments in with the nutritionist. And the the requirements that you need and the tests that you need to take for the surgery and then they submit it to insurance and then you get a date. Right.
SPEAKER_00So not every doctor, just to clarify that, not every doctor requires that. That's only if you're getting it approved through insurance. And if you don't get it through insurance and you you don't have to do all that.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And also a big thing for me was I remember telling my husband, I'm like Mendy, I have the opportunity right now to get this covered by insurance. I don't want to ever have this opportunity again. Ever. And not only that, actually when we first got married, I remember I went to this doctor, Dr. Bessler in Columbia and um I was going to do the surgery back then. Oh before I got pregnant and um I was going to pay like I already like sent the deposit and I was going to pay out of pocket for it. And I because I never gotten any surgery I never had any any issues I was like I'm too scared. I don't want to like put a knife to my stomach. It's not for me. Right. So um but after your whole labor experience this was like a walk in the park. Yeah. Just to say if anyone's um thinking about it, it was the best decision that I've ever made for myself. I would say the first day you just feel like you did a hundred sit-ups. You don't see the stitches they cover it. I remember walking literally like I walked in with the nurses to the surgery room. They're like okay you lay on the table they're like what song do you want? And I was like oh I don't know play Drake. So the last thing Drake and that's the last thing I remembered. They put me to sleep and then I woke up yeah um and yeah you sleep in the hospital my mother slept with me. My husband was home with my baby. It was really incredible. Like it was it's such a good tool to have and and I do have a lot of women that are coming at me on social media and saying you're not helping people that have body dysmorphia and this could really affect the younger generation. And I want to make something very clear is that when I say that the surgery is really life changing, I know so many people that are struggling with walking up the stairs and being out of out of breath, having um heart problems, their legs being purple for being overweight um when you lose weight all those problems go away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And this is really it's not for your for your average person who's in the regular BMI. This is for someone who's morbidly obese and that needs help. Yeah. And also I never had a healthy relationship around food. Like I remember um and I was just telling this to my husband the other day um when I was a kid I used to walk to school with my friends and on the way to school which is there's this grocery store Klein's that was a block before I got to school I would go in get a huge ices like this big yeah and um three bags of ketchup chips no matter what. Yeah. And he had like it was like back then so we had a box with index cards. He had my name and he would just oh I'm putting it on your bill I'm putting it on your bill.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And by the time I got to school which was again a block after everything was done.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_04And then recess would come and I would ask my friends for snack. And like my heart really hurts even like hearing that like when my child goes to school and then they're eating because they're afraid that there's not going to be enough and then recess comes and they don't have a snack and then they're eating everyone else's snack like it hurts and my heart hurts for little Dina.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So there's a lot of like also trauma with but I also think that people think the minute you get the surgery you know and you lose the weight that everything is magically better. But really it's the internal work at least it was for me it's the internal work that you do like I didn't know you got it specifically yeah that's that's what I I did a whole podcast on it. No way. On all I did a lot of surgeries. I did the lap end also I did the sleeve I did the lap end twice. Yeah so that's like a whole other discussion. But but I know for me that if I didn't want if I didn't do the internal work of like the relationship with food and the relationship with my body then the sleeve would eventually like wear off right because your stomach does expand over time and then you have to use what you actually learned about food and incorporate it into your everyday life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's yeah that's a big part of it.
SPEAKER_04I know people that have gotten it I know people that have gained back all the way and I know know people that have kept it off years later. Yeah. Um I think Hashem has put me in a place of experiencing what I went through postpartum of not walk walking not being able to eat not just just doing not um just not being able to do regular daily life things that your average person could do. And um it made me do like a deep dive in my life and um changed the way I look at food and change the way I look at working out. I'm not working out now to get thin I'm working out to get strong as hell um and what I put in my body is is what's gonna help me get there. And we're also a really uh toxic free household so we don't do plastic um we don't use any like toxins um cleaning tools you were always like that or it just happened after any my husband when I met my husband he was really like this and I didn't know anything about it and it actually would piss me off like he knew like he's like he would never use the microwave when I would use it like he wouldn't say anything um and then like he would just silently like go on Amazon like buy wooden cutting boards and um he would be like here if you want this like you can use this also but he was never like forceful about it and then this whole thing happened um and I feel like I was like just not forced into it but I was shown that there's a whole new world of health and that big pharma wants to make money off of us and what were what were the the humans doing years ago and how was there less cancer and less diabetes years ago. But then that also is contradictory to the medication that you take right so it's like this so I um so I told my husband at a I said at a certain point and I actually was going to um herbalist and um I was doing a lot of like energy work. My husband doesn't really believe in the energy stuff. I feel like no men do no men do my father doesn't either men do my father's like if you want you pay me $250 I'll be your energy back there. So I was doing like a lot of this before and at a certain point I had to like surrender. And I remember I told my husband I was like this is he's I said like I have to take this medication and my doctor did tell me he's like Dina um I'm giving you this medication and I'm forcing you to take this medication not literally but right literally he's like but you have to promise me that you're going to work out three to five times a week and I was like why he's like because the same serotonin that you get from the medication you get from working out. So and I see it I see it as soon as I work out everything else in my life is in control.
SPEAKER_00The food that I eat the shopping the the the budgets all of that's in control when I work out when you don't work out the shopping and the budget is like out the window like my friend in Florida Dana she's like whenever I like go above our budget yeah I text her she's like did you work out today and I was like actually I didn't so um yeah definitely so what would you if you had like one thing that you would want to tell people if they don't feel like themselves you know at this point in their life what should they do?
SPEAKER_04I would say that if you don't have as much a drive or patience or interest to do the little things that you once did before you had a baby if we're talking about like postpartum um definitely get help. Just like a quick little thing I had a glasses store on the corner of my uh block. I live on the corner it was across the street on the other corner and the doctor kept the the I doctor kept calling me he kept saying your glasses are ready your glasses are ready. And the thought of me walking 30 seconds to the store felt like I was walking a mountain wow literally climbing a mountain and I kept replaying that and like my shoulders were just getting heavy every time but I never was like weary of what was going on and that this is postpartum depression. There's nothing to be ashamed of ever since I posted that I struggle with postpartum depression so many people have messaged me that they have struggled with it. And also they are either considering or they have gotten a weight loss surgery. I just think there's so many like hush hush things in the world that we don't normalize and these are all normal things. You can still wear your Chanel look pretty wear your lip gloss and take postpartum depression medication.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah you know and I think that's so amazing that like you're so brave to talk about it openly on on your platform really not a lot of women are doing it even with Ozempic culture everybody's on Ozempic but not talking that they're on Ozempic and you know like God forbid you should say that you're doing something to help yourself look and feel better. And I'm not really sure why there's a stigma that's around it but it is what it is and hopefully that will change. But just by you kind of being even a little bit open about your about your journey is like that one step closer to like people just normalizing the stuff. Like there's just no reason why we shouldn't so um if you want just tell people where they can find you and your amazing wig line. So thank you.
SPEAKER_04Our Instagram is Dina Sternwigs and you can contact us there and if you have any questions regarding surgery postpartum depression medication or um anything you can DM me and I'll see you and I'll answer.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for joining us today Dina. This was amazing. If you like this show if you can please like subscribe and share um you can find me on Instagram at talk to Tamara or on my website at TamaraGestetner.com or you can DM me for any private consultations.