Transcript:
*We apologize for any typos, misspellings or incorrect grammar. Our transcript is auto-generated by software that’s trying its best, just like all of us.*
Welcome to the Milk Minute podcast, everybody. Milk Minute podcast. You know what? Fuck you. Welcome to our Roblox podcast. Every time I say welcome, it’s just never good enough for you.
It’s fine, we’re fine today. We’re recording at the end of a long day. I don’t know if you could tell. We’ve got the sleepy hahas. We’re gonna make it through. This is the perfect episode to record when we’re losing it because I have no filter and I want to tell you all about my breast augmentation. I just want to talk about my boobs today.
I know. I think truly it’s gonna be a great episode. I’m really tired from a recent birth, you’re really tired from being so, so pregnant, and yeah, we’re talking about boobs as usual, which is what we do. Yeah, boobs as usual, but specifically Like your boobs. My boobs, yeah. Which is, I know exactly what you all want to hear about, so.
I mean, maybe it is though. Maybe they’ve just been waiting since you first told us you got a boob job that we were going to talk about it. 179 episodes in. I’m finally comfortable enough to talk to you about it anyway. Absolutely. Yeah. Well how’s, how’s your business been Heather? I know you’ve been growing and growing.
Yeah. Growing and growing. We hired. We hired an administrative assistant who is amazing and she’s holding it down. She’s reorganizing everything, which is great because my brain just does not work in that way. And she has like 400 post it notes, illegible things written on them on her desk. And it’s incredible.
I, I mean, good for her. So she’s doing great. And I’m really excited about that. And let’s see, Abigail is still crushing it, trying to keep everything together. And then my other consultant, Meredith, who is wonderful. If you all need anything while I’m on maternity leave, Meredith can help you with whatever you need.
And we do accept some insurance. So she’s now working part time, like fully part time Tuesdays and Thursdays. So we got her rolling. And just recently we got a LabCorp account so we can actually draw our own blood and take our own urine now. So if we have, yeah, thank God. So if we have low milk supply or a nipple wound that won’t heal, we can actually do all of those diagnostics ourselves instead of having to refer out.
So we’re just keeping everything in house, still fighting the good fight, trying to get paid by insurance companies. But we are currently making enough to keep the lights on. Are we making enough for me to take a full six weeks of maternity leave? Probably not, but we’re gonna make it happen. Guess we’ll find out.
Something’s gonna happen. This baby’s gonna come out of my vagina, I hope, very soon. And then the chips will fall where they may. So that’s what’s going on. But not too soon. Not too soon. They’re going to come at just the right time. Okay. It’s just how it goes. Yeah, what about your business? What’s happening over there?
Well, I’m continuing to try to get my office ready and also like still on my, you know, third or fourth week of waiting on a toilet to get fixed, as it goes. But I’m like slowly getting like furniture in that I like and I’m gonna be preparing to paint pretty soon so like it’s functional at the most minimum definition of that word right now.
But hopefully in a few weeks it will be like comfortable. Yeah well, I think the bare minimum of comfort would be able to pee in your own office that you rent. Yeah, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s a, it’s, it’s a little frustrating. I don’t know, I’ve, I’ve usually just been like in spaces that I own and I haven’t rented a space in a really long time and I’m like, oh, I’m sorry, right, I have to wait on maintenance when I can just fix, I can fix a toilet.
And they’re like, nope. Union. I’m kidding. Like I, I can though. Maybe I will. We’ll see. Well, you know, I often don’t wait for the men in charge to come fix things because I have no patience and I’ll just do it myself. But if you can wait, you can prioritize something else. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.
That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’m like, okay, I have so many other things to do that shouldn’t be on my to do list. But who knows? Well, I am so proud of you for getting an office. It’s beautiful. I haven’t seen it in person yet. But I’m excited to. You’ll soon. I think you’re going to come down at some point.
Yeah. Next week, I think. Yay. Yeah. Okay. So let’s thank a few patrons and then let’s get into talking about my breast augmentation and breastfeeding journey after that. And we are going to be interviewing Dr. Katrina Mitchell, who is a breast surgeon and IBCLC pretty soon here on the podcast. So we wanted to give you my personal story before we got into The Nitty Gritty of Breastfeeding and Breast Surgery with Dr.
Mitchell. Okay, so we have just been continuing to get lots of new patrons and we’re very thankful. So, thank you especially today to Caitlin Sissick, Hannah Frazee, Jill Lancaster, Christina Quao, and Metta Carson. We are super, super, super thankful for your patronage. And if you guys want to join us on Patreon, as always, you can go to Patreon.
com slash milk minute podcast. All my maternity pictures are going to be on there. If you want to see the bump, I’m trying to keep it kind of private. So that’s where it’s happening. Over on Patreon. Well, let’s take a minute to thank one of our sponsors. And when we come back, we’re going to answer a question about reusing a haka.
Imagine a world where you seek lactation care and it’s easy and someone greets you at the door and they’re nice to you and they give you a hot cup of tea and let you sit on the couch and talk about all the issues, not just the breastfeeding issues. What a cozy fantasy. Is there anywhere that’s real? Oh, it’s real, girl.
It’s real, and I’ve been building it for quite a long time. My business is called Breastfeeding for Busy Moms, and me and every member of my team are trained in our three major tenets, which is accessibility, kindness, If you want to book a consult with Heather or anyone else on her team, you should head over to breastfeedingforbusymoms.
com. We do accept some limited insurance and we’d be happy to walk you through it if you want to give us a call. And that number’s on Google. So go sit on the cozy couch with Heather at Breastfeeding for Busy Moms. Love you guys.
Alright everybody, welcome back. We’re gonna start off with a question from our Facebook group from Hannah. And Hannah asks, Did you reuse your haka with baby number two or do they lose suction and need a replacement? I don’t want to put something in the landfill unnecessarily, but I also used the haka so much with number one and I anticipate to do the same again.
I mean, short answer is yeah, you’re supposed to replace it after a few months, you know, after use and washing the silicone does sort of like lose some of its integrity, but also like it’s kinda up to you. You know, I’ve known people to use just like one for a really long time. Well, it also kind of depends on how often you sanitized it, because the sanitization process is kind of what breaks those things down the most.
Yeah. So the best thing you could do is maybe like, bring yours to Target or somewhere in person, and then feel yours compared to the one on the shelf. And if yours feels up, some Hawkins. Yeah, if yours feels like a very loose rubber band and theirs feels like a nice, firm, structured piece of silicone, it might be time to upgrade.
And then also, you know, we’re only using the Hakka, ideally to collect a little bit of milk. So if it works for you to get an extra three ounces a day total, then that’s great. But if you can’t get any drops out of it at all, then it’s time to upgrade. Or, or if it just like falls off every time. Yeah, if it falls off every time.
Yeah, let’s get a new one. It’s not working, sister. Yeah. Well, I hope that answered your question. The answer was kind of yes, no. Okay, let’s talk about boobs. Treat yourself. Get a new Haka. Okay, back to me and my boobs. All right, what do you want to know? Well, I just kind of want to start at the beginning.
Like, I know we’ve talked about it a little bit before, but let’s just include all of it. I want to know kind of both Like, just, let’s start with, like, why you wanted to get the surgery, when you got it, that kind of stuff. Okay. So, it was, I don’t know. I, I was always kind of a midwife at heart. You know, middle school, I was the girl that was, like, teaching everyone about their period before I even got their period.
And, I always had a very, very flat chest. And, it was, like, a running joke in my family, because every woman in my family has over a D cup. And my mom would say things like Any day now they’re gonna come in, you know, puberty’s gonna hit and it’s just they’re gonna come in. Don’t worry. They’ll come in Like armpit hair, you know And so I would just be waiting with bated breath for these boobs to just show up one day.
They never did so It was, it must have been something that I talked about quite often, and I’m pretty good at making fun of myself. And, you know, everyone’s insecure in middle school and high school, so it was just kind of one of those things that every friend of mine would, like, poke fun at. And it never really, like, bothered me to make fun of it, but when I looked at myself in the mirror, it just did not feel like me.
Like, I just kind of always felt like something was missing, if that makes any sense. And… Also, I was very thin in general, but the shape of my rib cage is actually such that my ribs, my lower part of my ribs, stuck out further than my breasts. So when I would wear tight clothing, it was almost like I was all ribs.
And no titties which, you know, it just made me think about my chest so much that it was taking up a lot of space in my brain. So I would always talk about like, Oh, someday, don’t worry, I’ll just buy them, you know, I’ll just buy them someday. And I, you know, if anyone else had asked me, like if, if it was me talking to me, I’d be like, Girl, you’re beautiful.
You know, like, you don’t need that, you know, body empowerment. But for me, and I do love myself and I love my body. And if I never had breast implants, I probably would still love my body. But I will say this. I don’t think about them that much anymore now that I have breast implants. It just kind of removed that constant thought every time I got dressed, every time I was naked in front of a partner, you know, where I would always just kind of be like, are these okay?
Like, what do you even do with them? I remember thinking that during sex where I was just kind of like, what do you even do with these? They don’t bounce. There’s nothing to grab. There’s nothing to suck on. It is not even a handful. It is just… You know, I hope he’s a leg guy.
You know, and so, which is all, like, funny, but also just annoying. It was just annoying to me. And it wears on you to be having the same constant anxiety about those things, you know? Yes. Also, very annoying was all of the bras that were padded that I would wear just to stick my breasts out further than my ribs.
There was nothing to hold them down, so if I lifted my arms, the padding would actually come up over my nipples. So I was constantly pulling bras down, so the padding would be where it’s supposed to be. In fact, I, so I used to do, like, some wedding dress modeling, and I worked at this little boutique, which was fantastic, in my town.
And the little… Chinese lady who worked in the back sewing all of the dresses. She used to stick her hands down the dresses and grab my boobs and she’d say, you no have, you no have. I put for you. And she would sew these giant breast cups into every gown I ever needed to wear for prom or anything like that.
And so I have so many pictures of me Dancing at events where I’m, my body is turned and my breasts stay with the dress, but my body is facing a different direction. And it just always felt like false advertising. If I was going to hook up with a guy, I’d have like these giant, you know, padded titties in this ball gown and the ball gown comes off and it’s just like, eh, I hope this is okay.
Now they’re on the floor. So it was just. It was just a lot of maintenance, to be honest with you. Yeah, that’s fine. So, I mean, and I, like, all, all your, yeah, and all your reasons are valid. Like, you know, I, I know we talk a lot about loving our bodies and reaffirming that they’re useful and functional and beautiful how they are.
But it’s also okay to be unsatisfied with your body and want to change it. Like, those two things can exist at the same time. Yeah. And I think that’s what was happening for me. You know, I, I never felt like I had low self-esteem. It just was a thing for me that it was just. Bothersome. Yeah. Well, let me tell you about when I first got boobs, which yeah with Theo So when I got pregnant with Theo and I had him I did not have implants at the time So my milk came into my double a boobs, and I was one of those people that took a shower on day three, went into the shower with double a’s, and came out with a d cup.
And I was like, whoa! And they were as hard as this desk that the microphone’s on right now. And he could not latch on for anything, and it was very weird for me to have boobs all of a sudden, but still not functional boobs. I was so… mad. I was so mad and they were so sore. I mean, it hurt worse than my c section incision.
I remember just crying and looking at my mom and being like, what the hell? I finally have these boobs and I still can’t use them for anything good. And Oh my Lord. And so we had a lot of issues breastfeeding in the beginning. They did eventually calm down, but they calmed down to be like a bee, I would say, like a large bee cup, and there were certain positions that I still couldn’t do.
Like, I really had a hard time with sideline nursing, because my breasts just did not… Reach him like I couldn’t really get the nipple to where it needed to go Now I never worked with a lactation consultant, and I didn’t know what I know now So that was just me being an amateur just trying my best to get a smaller breast Into a 36 week baby mouth, which was very challenging so giving myself some grace there, but You know, I remember watching some friends of mine, like, nurse their baby in a car seat where their breasts would just dangle.
Yeah, they could just literally move their boob and just put it in their baby’s mouth and I would be like, I can’t do that. So positioning for me, I always had to be like an upright soldier. And so then after I weaned Theo, my breasts were then saggy. Double A’s and I was single at this point and so it makes a difference.
Yeah. So, so, I mean, you know, my padded bras actually worked a little bit better, but not much, not much better. And at that point I was just. Irritated. I was 27. I was in great shape. I had this psychotic toddler and saggy double A’s and I was in the dating scene and it was a shit show. It’s bad out there.
So. I mean, to be very frank with you, I, you have crazy thoughts. Like I’m a single mom, no one would ever want to date me anyway because I’m a single mom and I’m like a nurse with a crazy schedule and I’ve got these saggy tits, which is not just change one of those things. I know it’s like, if I could just have.
Boobs, it might give me a level up so I could get a decent man because I, which is not true. That was the story I was telling myself. But it, you know, it, we, we always think illogical things. And also it sounds like you had a lot of stress in your life at that point. And, you know, when that happens, your brain is like, what’s the thing?
that we can reduce, right? Like, what’s the thing, the stressor we can eliminate? You can’t, you couldn’t change your job. You couldn’t change the fact that you had a toddler or that you were a single mom or that you had no support. So you were like, my boobs, that’s the one. This I can control. Exactly. Yeah, and I had done a lot of self-love work on my body at that time.
I, I even had a younger man that I had been hooking up with. I had myself a little post-divorce play toy thing, which I highly recommend. And you know, being someone that had, that was 27, I was in good shape, but I had a C section incision. I had a kid, I had these boobs and this guy was just happy to be there.
And so happy to die. Right, but he was just like, you know, his presence and his general energy and body acceptance for me was very helpful. So by the time I actually went to the surgical consult, I was in a really good headspace about my body and the reasons why I wanted to do it. And I was really impressed with the surgeon’s approach to my reasons.
So it wasn’t like a, tell me why you want to do this. It was more just like, tell me about how you feel about your breasts. And I was like, Oh, okay. Well, in general, like I’m pretty happy with him, but it’s just something that’s always bugged me. And he specifically asked me if I was doing this for a guy.
And I said, No, actually, like I was completely single. I didn’t even have my, my boy toy anymore. And I said, No, it’s, it’s just me. I’m single. And this is for me. That’s something I’ve really wanted since I was 12, which is weird. But. You know, welcome to our 90s culture. And he said, great. And then we tried on the sizes and we talked about breastfeeding.
So he did bring up breastfeeding. He said, are you going to have more kids? And I said, I doesn’t look like it. I said, no, I, it doesn’t appear that I’m having children anytime soon. And he said, okay, because if we do implants, I would prefer that you not breastfeed for 18 months to two years, just to really let it kind of calm down.
And I said, well, I, I don’t even have a boyfriend. So considering it takes 40 weeks to grow a baby, I’d have to get knocked up like. Pretty soon. Joke was on me.
We’ll get into that in a little bit. But he did say, okay, well if you want to get pregnant again someday, it would be definitely best to put this below the muscle. So we’re not in the way of any glandular tissue and also the safest route would be the inframammary crease underneath the breast, which leaves a scar.
Sort of, you know, like, you’d have to really lift up my boob at this point to see it. But, you know, he didn’t want to go through the armpit, there’s just too many lymph nodes there. And he didn’t want to go through the belly button because of infection. Because your belly button’s disgusting, folks, in case you didn’t know that.
And you definitely don’t want to do, like, any kind of incision that involves the nipple or the areola when we’re planning to possibly have more children. Yeah, and they wouldn’t usually do that for like a primary augmentation anyway. More for like a reduction. But for me, I chose the scar. Because of safety and placement and we talked about saline versus silicone and at the time, you know, saline is technically safer, but he did not like to do them because he said of all the breast implants that I’ve done, the only ones that have ever ruptured are For the saline, which makes sense, you know, and he said, you’re young, you work out, you know, like the chances that you’re going to, this isn’t your final set of boobs.
Also, he’s like, I would much rather put boobs in that are going to last for a good 10 years, you know, then try to risk it. with saline and have them rupture and then you have to come back and yadda yadda. If saline ruptures, it’s not that big of a deal because your body is salt water and saline is salt water.
The silicone that I had put in, so I did choose the silicone, was more like a gummy bear kind of texture. So it’s safer because it doesn’t have like the beads that will end up in your bloodstream, but it is firmer. I think, from what I can recall, because it’s been a while now. So this was 2017 that I had this done, so.
Totally. Yeah, a while ago. So, I guess, you know, I’m wondering, like, overall with your surgery and the experiences with your surgeon, like, how do you feel like your satisfaction at least was at that point? So. One thing that kind of surprised me, which we did talk about, but I just don’t think you can really be prepared for it when it happens, is, you know, we talk about the risk of what’s called capsular contracture, where the pocket that they create to put the implant in Kind of gets scar tissue and it seizes up around the implant and inflammation kind of like malforms it And they then they would have to go back in clear it out.
Like it’s a bad gnarly situation And he had said, you know try on these different sizes Which is kind of funny because you’re like in there by yourself, like trying on different boobs. Like you’re 12 again and looking at yourself in the mirror, like, which titties am I going to purchase today? And so I requested a full C.
I did not want. Giant boobs. I just want it because I’m, I had a pretty thin frame at the time. I did not want to look like Dolly Parton. God bless her. I do love that woman. So I, I chose like a nice 375 CC situation and he said, great. And so I go in for surgery and It goes, well, I come out of surgery and I look down and I’m like, oh shit, like, those are big.
And he, he comes in, he said everything went really well, but your pocket was actually bigger than I thought it was because you have breastfed before. So, I guess because of the sagginess, you know, like the way the breasts, That I originally had kind of inflated and then deflated when he got in there and saw the actual pocket He was like it was safer for me.
He said I’m I apologize. I had to make a decision It was safer For me to fill the pocket up than to go with a smaller size and leave space Because when you leave space you leave room for capsular contracture. And so I ended up with Bigger than a D. Oof, yeah. So I met like 450 cc’s, I think, in one, and then 475 in the other, I believe.
Because my breasts were actually different sizes to begin with. Sure, as everyone’s are. As everyone’s are. So, that kind of, I was like, okay, I like safety. And, and my initial thought was, well, Heather, you did want boobs. You got them sister, you know, like you get what you get, you don’t throw a fit. And I was like, all right, I guess these are the boobs I have now.
And so the recovery was pretty fine. You know, it was hard having a two year old and being single because he wanted to me to pick him up all the time. And I didn’t. take time off of work and probably should have been on light duty and wasn’t and just, you know, typical Heather stuff didn’t do what I was supposed to do.
And a week after I had them done, so they were very shiny. They were, you could have bounced a quarter off of them. They were very tight. A week after I had a date with this guy and he was really cute and we went and had some drinks and we went bar hopping and it was going really well. and I had had enough drinks that I looked at him like at the end of the night and I said, I realize we’re getting a little tipsy and I’m gonna need you to not grab my boobs, , just in case you had a thought.
I did just have my boobs done. I really, really don’t want you to try to touch them. And he started cracking up and he said, I can tell. And I said, what the hell do you mean? You can tell. And he goes, well, I’ve seen fake boobs before. And I said, well, these are fresh. And he goes, I know they’re up by your neck.
So I married him. That’s my husband. Now I’m not saying it was the boobs that landed the husband, but. I mean, it sounds like he contributed. I mean, but you know what’s funny? He’s not a boob guy. And yeah, like it used to make me mad. Like our, especially our first year of marriage, he’d like grab my big fake boob and he’d be like, I just wish I would’ve, I could’ve seen him before.
Oh, I just love you so much. It’s kind of sweet though. I know. It is, it is really I don’t know, ironic or something that I know that you met him literally like a week after the surgery when I don’t know if it would have changed your mind. Maybe not. But if you had met him a couple weeks earlier, I know.
Well, yeah, if I had met him a couple weeks earlier and he’d be like, Oh my God, I love your saggy double A’s, you know, you know, I mean, he probably wouldn’t have said that either. He probably wouldn’t have said anything. Probably just wouldn’t have said much, yeah. Yeah, he’s, he just doesn’t care that much, but he does love me as a person so much that he wishes he could have seen me before just to see the different versions of me.
Yeah, which is, which is really sweet. Yeah, so, whatever. We got married six months after we met, and that was funny because I was also working out for the wedding and just in general and one of my boobs got stuck up in this like weird Contracted position one day like six like not six months, maybe like four months after the surgery And we had gone for a run together, which we don’t do that now.
You’re like, whoo, those young, young, hot people we used to be back when I was 29. Yeah. And so we went for a run and we were about to get married, like literally about to be married and go on our honeymoon. And my boob was literally just contracted up high and like, would not relax. And I was like, what the hell?
And so I called the surgeon and they had me come right in. And he was like this is weird. He was like, it’s not capsular contracture. He’s like, I think you just literally pulled a muscle and it like pulled it up. Right. Cause it’s under the muscles. So it just like, yeah. So I took some ibuprofen and once the muscle calmed down, it, it like went back to where it was supposed to go.
But I was like, well, that was scary. You know, like anyone that’s actually been through capsular contracture, I feel for you because you worked so hard to get those boobs and then you have a complication like that. And it’s, it really is scary. Cause you’re like, I did this to myself and anyway. It worked out.
The boob calmed down. They are even once again. And then we got pregnant. So I literally got pregnant 18 months after I got the surgery. And the surgeon was just like, yep. This is why we talk about this. So anyway, I didn’t have any issues with breastfeeding Heidi as far as supply goes. That’s always one of the biggest things that people wonder.
Yeah. There’s a lot online about do breast implants cause supply issues and just to speak to that quickly without getting into a whole episode about it, it’s kind of hard to say because a lot of times when people do get breast implants, it’s because they do have underlying insufficient glandular tissue to begin with.
So it might not be the implants, it might just be a lack of glandular tissue.
If you have implants that are huge, like really tight and we don’t have a lot of extra room for the glandular tissue to expand with milk making and your breasts are constantly under pressure, the pressure is what kills the milk making cells. So I. I think I have just, just enough in there to fill up my pocket.
My glands aren’t impacted. I was a just enougher for Heidi, but I also didn’t do it correctly. , as far as like much you, you did your best. Heather . I did my best. So we made it, you know, and my engorgement was not, As bad the second time around, even with the implants. And the biggest issue for me was nipple sensitivity after the surgery.
So I did have like a pins and needles feeling in my nipples for six months or more, which was, that sounds bad, super annoying, like really, really annoying. And I do have a little bit of numbness in the nipples, but I never really liked having my nipples sucked on with sex anyway. So it didn’t. Numbness seems like a manageable symptom.
The pins and needles. Oh God, I’m so glad that went away. Yeah, that doesn’t usually persist. I, the interesting thing about the numbness though, is I’m like, there’s sort of like a pro and a con there with breastfeeding, right? One is that it kind of might help in the beginning when we’re like, most people experience some discomfort just from kind of, you know, tissue changing and different use and all that.
But I could see that as a serious. problem if it’s actually preventing you from feeling injury. That happened. Yeah, Heidi had a tongue tie, still does, because I never knew about it, did not get it fixed. We’ll probably have to get it fixed at some time, but yeah, my nipples were tore up. Like I had full scabs and cracks on the ends of both of my nipples and it did hurt, like it, I had enough feeling that it hurt, but not enough feeling to recognize it was happening when it was happening.
Yeah. Okay. Well, definitely something, you know, moving forward then to consider how to manage that. Mm hmm. All right. Well, I need some water. So let’s take a quick break to thank a sponsor. And when we come back I’m gonna tell you about how I feel now, pros and cons, and you know, what I’m planning with this baby.
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That’s milk underscore minute for 15 percent off your liquid IV today. Happy drinking!
All right, welcome back everybody. So Heather, the… The burning question is how do you feel now, years after this surgery, about what’s going on with your body? Honestly, I feel pretty good about it. Like, I don’t really have regrets about having breast implants. I think my frame and just the, my general body, it looks…
Good like it looks like oh, yeah, it’s like that those boobs match that person, you know It’s not like I’m not like a stick figure with giant boobs. It’s like nope. She’s got hips. She’s got a little bit of a belly She’s got boobs like I feel like a very voluptuous which I did have some body dysmorphia even though I really wanted the breast implants after the surgery, it did take me a little bit of time to, to be like, this is me now.
But it’s been, it’s been six years since the surgery and I mean it definitely feels like me now. Yeah. The cons for me would be that My neck has a lot more problems, and my back has a lot more problems. And all of my big breasted friends out there listening right now are like, Yeah, queen, I could have told you that.
I mean, it really like with, you know, and this is something with kind of every Like larger body modification you might want to make whether it’s adding weight or losing weight or whatever there are pros and cons to both right like and especially to a quick change your body is just like not prepared for that in a physiological way.
Yeah. Well, and then you add milk on top of it. And I had the worst breastfeeding neck you could possibly imagine. It was just, yeah, I have to be very cautious about positioning, moving furniture, like any kind of leaning over activity. Because I will. Pull my neck straight out and it just really sucks for me for like four days.
So that’s my biggest con and I will say, so one of my main reasons for getting the implants was so clothes would fit me better because of the rib situation. But I had no idea how to dress myself after I actually had boobs. So. A lot of the clothes that I would wear before when I was flat chested were like really loose fitting shirts that, you know, I could wear the, the tent dresses because I didn’t have breasts that like stuck them out.
And now, I can’t do that. I could, but I, I look Well, you can, but it’s not your style. It’s not my style, and it just I have to wear form fitting clothes. Otherwise, I look like a circus tent, where I look giant! Like, it adds so much weight, visually, to my body, that I don’t like. That is not something that I enjoy.
Yeah, it’s definitely now you probably do have to look at, like, the bust size when you’re buying dresses and shirts. and things like that. Yeah. And so then it also makes me more conscious of my stomach because when I wear tighter fitting clothing, so I don’t look like a circus tent, then it shows all of my stomach, which is now the new thing to think about.
Yeah. No, it’s a new thing to think about. And I’m just like, God damn it. So annoyed. And, and I think the reality is that we’re all, our, our self-image is always a work in progress. Right. Because we’re constantly changing both mentally and physically. And, you know, by the time you get used to, like, Oh yeah, okay, I feel good in this mom body, then like menopause hits.
And then like, you know, then your gray hair comes and it’s just like, you know, we are ever changing and evolving. And it makes sense that, you know, sometimes your body image kind of lags behind that a little bit or has some trouble keeping up. That’s true. And then, you know, I’m also thinking about complications that could happen because of it.
You know, my children are very rough with me. Like yours probably are too. Where they, like, flying leaps into your chest and you’re like, wow, please don’t pop my titty. Like, I really don’t need this gummy bear experience. I’ve never had to have that thought. It’s scary. I mean, when you have like a four and a half year old, who’s 50 pounds, like doing a flying squirrel leap into your, yeah.
Ow. And then you wonder for the rest of the day, like, am I fine? Did she pop my titty? How do I know? Then there’s also the thoughts of like, I have hives constantly all over my chest and arms and I can’t really find a reason for it. I’ve tried all of the things and I had somebody mentioned to me one time.
Maybe you’re allergic to your implants. And I was like, shut up right now. And so I Googled it immediately because I was freaking out. And apparently this is a thing that people wonder quite often. They say it is not like your hives are not from your breast implants. However, I don’t know. Yeah, inexplicable hair loss last year, I was like, is it breast implant illness?
Oh, and I didn’t want to mention it at the time because I was like, that’s a little like hyperbolizing the situation because it’s your only symptom, but like also keep in the back of my mind if you’re like, also these other symptoms popped up. Yeah, I mean, it sucks to kind of have that in the back of your mind where it’s like, yeah, you do have two foreign bodies inside your body.
And if you are prone to inflammatory cycles and things like that, I mean, illness comes from inflammation. So anyway, it’s just something to think about. I have no confirmation on that. I really stopped looking at it because I was like, well, Heather, you’re not getting them taken out for hives. So. Yeah. And, and I, I mean, the reality is like, it does, you know, Service to be constantly anxious about it, you know, like that hypervigilance of like, Oh, no, was that twinge part of an inflammatory cycle of illness due to my boobs?
You know that that really, like, does kind of stink to be in that pattern of thinking. Yeah, if you run really high anxiety, just in general, and you freak out about stuff, this would probably not be a good path for you. Like, you have to be okay with a foreign body being implanted inside your body for, like, a decade.
So, you know, that, if it’s gonna bother you every single day, probably don’t do it. It’s, it’s a big deal. It’s a big surgery. It was, it was, you know, a decent recovery period. That I should have taken more seriously. I don’t know, but, so I guess my concerns at this point would be mostly superficial. Okay, can I just be a basic bitch right now?
Absolutely, this is your episode to be a basic bitch, please. Thank you. I’ll get you a pumpkin spice, okay? Okay, thanks. So, I’m 30, almost 36 weeks pregnant. With my third baby, I am heavier than I was with my second baby. Definitely heavier than I was with my first baby. My breasts have grown even more, so now I’m more like a, I don’t even know what size.
So… We don’t need to dwell on it, you know? We’re just, I know that I’m a Walmart large, at hmm.
So I guess my biggest concern is that I’m gonna breastfeed this third baby, I’m going to wean eventually, and then I’m going to have very heavy, saggy boobs, and the implants are gonna look like baseballs at the end of tube socks. And then where will we be? You know, then it’s like, okay. And frankly, I hate wearing bras, so I don’t actually have to wear a bra right now still like I, they’re pretty perky still, but if I have to wear a bra every single day, I’m probably getting them taken out.
I’ll be honest. So like I, I don’t think that I’m going to maintain this size forever. Number one, because I think it will affect my neck and my back to the point where it’s just not worth it. I have a partner that does not give a shit. About what I look like and it just because I’m not in the dating scene and also I’m 35 years old.
I’m not trying to be a sex symbol. I’m kind of moving into a different part of my life where I’m I, I value more what I’m adding to society rather than like what I look like and what I am. And there’s a place for that, like, not to take away from that. Because I enjoyed my hot girl era. Fully. We all did.
We all did. Okay. Loved it. Would not give it up. Body glitter. The whole thing. Like, I’m into that. But that’s just not me now. Like, it would look ridiculous on me. And I just don’t spend my time on that. So, I don’t regret the surgery. But I bet you I get them taken out instead of getting them. You know.
Replaced. Yeah. Replaced. However, we might have to do a reduction with a smaller implant. Right. You know. I would really like to have the C that I wanted. The C cup that I really wanted. I think that is truly where my brain would be very happy and I think my neck could handle that. Probably. Yeah. And they, because they would have to do a reduction, they could make the pocket smaller.
Mm hmm. Whereas before, they’re not going to make the pocket smaller, they’re just going to fill it up. Yeah, well and, and you know, if you’re already doing that, like you could absolutely address some of like where they’re lying, what makes you happy with that position on your chest, where you feel like you personally could go without a bra, like all of that.
Ooh, I forgot to mention, so my ribs also have they kind of flare out a little bit. So my breasts naturally have nipples that face like more east west direction rather than straight on. So my breasts are more like hammerhead shark eyes than straight on boobs. And so when I got the implants, that didn’t change.
And I asked the doctor that before we did it. And I said, can you make it so they’re like in the front? And he said, no, he said, no, those are your ribs. Like, that’s just where they’re going to hang. And I was like, oh, that sucks, but whatever. Can’t have it all. But then I have these like triple D’s that are like side to side.
And I’m like, wow, that’s a vision that definitely exaggerated. Yeah. So unless you’re going to get your ribs tucked in, it ain’t going to fix that. Let me just tell you horrible. Right. Oh, my gosh. Well. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. I think a lot of people are really hesitant to talk about like body augmentation surgeries and especially, I feel like especially now where it’s like we actually, it feels like we have less and more stigma about that, right?
Like toxic body positivity. Yeah, I mean, we’re in this interesting age of social media and social awareness where we are like, yeah, let’s be pushing positivity around different body types and also transparency and also, you know, self-confidence and all that. And it kind of gets muddied when we talk about then changing the bodies that we were born with to better align with how we feel about ourselves.
I think that’s a really complicated topic for a lot of people. It is. And also it’s not, it’s not like the final decision, like who I was at 27 and 12 years old is not who I am at 35. And I think the biggest message is that that’s okay. You know? Like, that’s fine. And at 45, if I get them reduced, or I get them taken out completely, and I just say, screw it, and I just have saggy triple D’s, Like the rest of us.
Whatever. And then when I’m 50, if I’m like, you know what would be fun? I’m back in a hot older mom era. I’m gonna get them put back in. That’s okay, too. You know, so you don’t have to feel like, well, who I was at 12 is who I’m going to be for the rest of my life and thank God it’s not. It definitely, it definitely doesn’t have to be.
All right, well, I, I think we have an award here, that award in the alcove for a very special person, and then we’ll wrap it up. Okay, so I’m going to read this award today because I know her. She is a patient of mine, and I think she’s okay with me saying that. Since she did email this in. So this is for Carrie, and Carrie came to me with twins that she had been exclusively breastfeeding for well over a year.
And Carrie had a two week European vacation planned without her kids. And I was so happy for her. Like, she, she brought it up in the appointment, like, she was almost guilty about it. Like, I’ve got this thing, this European vacation with my husband. And I was like, hell yeah, let’s do it. She said, the thing is, I don’t want to be pumping and backpacking through Europe.
You know, that’s, that’s just too much for me, especially for twins, you know, especially when they’re 17 months old. So Carrie wrote in and she said that she just came back from her two week European vacation. They had a great time without the girls. It was awesome. And she wanted to tell me about her last nursing session that she had with the girls.
And so she had, Prepped them for it and they sat down and they nursed before bedtime and she explained to them at the time, just, you know, because they’re older kids, which is nice when you’re weaning an older kid. She said, you know, this is the last time having milk with mom. And they just kind of looked at her and she said, you know, after 10 minutes or so, do you want to go read a book with dad, which is their usual cue to stop nursing?
And they both said no. And so they kept nursing. And she said they were so calm, no hitting, giggling, poking each other, just lots of eye contact with me. And then she says, at one point I said how proud I was of all three of us. breastfeeding two babies for 17 months. And when she said that they both started clapping, which just like gets me, you know?
And so, so they actually nursed for 30 minutes and both fell asleep on her, which they never do. And she said it was the sweetest last nursing session. And then the next day they both asked for milk and she said, no, sorry. And they were like, okay. And they just moved on. So they had this great, really memorable experience, and she was able to stop completely and go on her vacation, and all is well.
They still love each other. I love that. That’s such a good success story. I, I really, I do love, like, weaning joy stories. Yeah! It’s not all bad and stressful. It can be good and beautiful. Well, Carrie, we wanted to give you the weaning wizard award. We’re just like super touched by the outcome of this.
I’m super proud of you for your entire journey breastfeeding twins. And yeah, we just couldn’t be happier for you. Although I will miss you as a patient because you were pretty fun, but I’m happy for you. Yes, well, perhaps again, but not right now. Yeah, maybe later. All right. Well, thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Milk Minute podcast.
The way we change this whole big system that is just not set up to serve breastfeeding parents is by educating ourselves, our friends, our family, sometimes our health care providers, and sharing resources like this podcast. So please tell a friend about this podcast. You can also write us a review on Apple or hit us up on Patreon at Patreon.
com slash Milk Minute Podcast. And you’ll hear a lot more personal stories from both of us on there about our families, our surgeries, our bump pictures, whatever else you want to see that we have going on. We keep all of our personal stuff on there. Alright, well I hope you guys have a great day, and if you’re on the fence about a boob job, I hope this helped you.
Bye. Bye.
