Breast Reduction Surgery, part 1
Note: if you don’t want to hear the word “Breast,” or feel unfortable with talking about them, please do not read these posts. I understand that some people do not think it is appropriate to talk about in public, and I respect that. If so, please do not join in reading this public post. I do include some personal thoughts, but I do it in good faith that you will be kind with my heart, as I will try to be with yours.
I organized my jumbled and overwhelmed thoughts into three parts: what I’ll miss (this post), what I’m grateful for, and what I’m looking forward to with breast reduction surgery. I am not focusing much on the actual surgery: you can google that pretty easily for information. My actual surgery is scheduled for February 21, 2022.
Breast Reduction Surgery part 1: What I’ll Miss
1. I’ll miss my excuses. One of my struggles with having breast surgery is the thought “Darn, now they will see my belly!” I’ve always had a bit of chub there, and I’ve always been self-conscious about it. When I got married, I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t suck it in and hide it forever.
Getting pregnant was a relief because I had a good explanation for the chub. And I’ve always been able to hide the chub behind some really big breasts. It has always been a comfort to me that it would take a lot before my tummy would be bigger than my boobs. Now there will be no place to hide.
2. I’ll miss my bras. I have worked hard and long to find ones that worked for me. It’s been a whole THING. I grew up with hand-me-downs. I had amazing cousins that would pass down brown paper grocery bags full of the coolest stuff. I loved getting those bags. I remember the first time one of them had a bra in it. Surely I’d never need that, I thought.
And just like that, I did need it. And I just kept needing more. And I never understood bras much, just that I wanted them to be comfortable, and so I’d try to find comfortable ones. I eyeballed it rather than learning the letters. Whatever my favorite bra said it was- that was my size. I was wearing a size 36 or 38D.
It wasn’t until a conversation with another big chested friend that she told me to go get measured. It changed everything. I was a 32G (or 32DDD). It turns out the numbers have to do with how many inches your rib cage is, and the letter is how big the cup needs to be to properly hold the breast in place. Who knew? Not me! Not me for almost 30 years!
Unfortunately, this knowledge came at a cost. You don’t find specific sizes that big at Goodwill. Most department stores don’t sell anything over a DD. I didn’t want to do online because so much was about individual fit for me. This left about two stores in the whole city where I could buy these bras. And they were almost $100 each. My bras are the most expensive part of my wardrobe. Buying a bra was something I saved up for, and happened about every other year.
Now that I have my one nice bra, my two day-to-day bras, and a plethora of sports bras when I don’t care about “uniboobs,”and I will miss them. They represent a journey, growth, and investment.
3. I’ll miss the tangled mess of being different. There was one rule for my boobs when growing up: cover them up. It was basically the same rule for my whole body. When I tried to figure out why, my conclusion was because my body was a powerful, scary thing, and had to be controlled. If I didn’t, it would hurt boys or cause me to be raped.
I know this is not how the adults in my life meant for me to understand my body: but that’s what my mind gathered from what I was given. It was my job to protect my Christian brothers. It was my job to not tempt someone to rape me. I took my job seriously. I covered up and ignored my body, mostly. I channeled my creativity away from fashion and dancing (because that was dangerous too) and into other pursuits.
Honestly, I didn’t miss it much. There were so many other things to do and care about. It was just like a missing step. There were benefits to my life because I made those choices. But it isn’t what I want for my daughters. I never had a big rebellious stage, but I did slowly work my way to a healthier understand of my body and my sexuality: mostly after I got married and had a supportive husband who called out the lies I believed and acted on. He gave me time and space to start feeling at home in my body, instead of the warden of a prison.
I was a really shy girl growing up. My goal was to blend in, and I did it pretty well. But then puberty and boobs happened. Other things happened as well, like finding I had talents and being homeschooled (which took me years to realize was considered weird). I figured out I wasn’t going to fit in and be like everyone else, no matter how hard I tried.
As I grew, I found that I liked (generally) being different. I started doing things differently on purpose. Not rebellious things, but trying new things, hanging out with different people. Not dating and partying like my friends. Working while going to community college. Not taking any school loans. Spending all my time and money in Brazil. I loved finding creative and better ways to do things. I was fine (generally) being alone without being lonely. It enabled me to live a really extraordinary life.
But sometimes I just wanted to fit in again. And large breasts were a very visual thing that didn’t allow that. One Brazilian teenager remarked loud enough for me to hear “I had no idea Americans had such big boobs” after meeting me. Way to represent my country. Even my husband remarked to his friend after first meeting me: “Tell me more about the boob lady.” (No, he will never live that down.)
In all my exasperation of how people reacted to something I had no say in on my body, it was something that made me different. And different often feels special. I must admit, since considering surgery, I’ve thought “Once my boobs are normal, does that mean I’m just normal?”
It is so confusing when you are unhealthily equated by so many people as just body parts, to disentangle that meaning back into its proper place. I was given extra attention because of my boobs. Even if it wasn’t healthy attention, it was impactful. It is sad to say that I’ll miss it, but I will.