When I was younger, I used to watch Modern Family and hoped that one day I would have big boobs like Sofia Vergara does. Almost everyone my age had hoped the same thing. When I finally hit puberty and my boobs started to come in, I wondered why I wasn’t growing as fast as all the other girls in my grade. By the time I started high school, I was a measly C cup and I wanted more. Little did I know, I was about to get my wish, but it was not what I hoped.
My boobs began to grow at the end of my freshman year and they didn’t stop throughout the entirety of high school. By my senior year, I was a 32H and I was miserable. The one thing I had always wanted turned out to be a curse. So many girls around me told me that I was lucky that I wasn’t flat chested, which only made me more upset. I wanted to wear cute little crop tops and dresses like all the other girls could, but nothing would fit me. I was a tiny girl carrying around these massive boobs that made me look and feel so much bigger than I actually was. All I felt was shame, and I would only wear oversized clothing so that nobody could see my body. To make matters worse, I was dealing with horrible back and shoulder pain and felt that exercise was impossible for me because I would inevitably get whacked in the face by my boobs.
By my senior year of high school, I had had enough. As soon as my boobs started growing far past the point I wanted them to, I knew I wanted a breast reduction. I figured since I was leaving for college and starting a whole new life, I might as well go into it feeling confident about my body. I consulted with a surgeon who told me everything I needed to know about getting my insurance to cover it. I had to gather letters from my general practitioner and my chiropractor, as well as bra receipts, to prove that I had at least tried to alleviate my back pain and surgery was the only option. When my insurance decided to cover the surgery, I was over the moon. Something I had wanted for so long was finally on the horizon.
When the time came, I went in for the surgery and it was a surprisingly easy process, before and after. I was in minimal pain and felt back to normal within a few days. And most importantly, I looked in the mirror and felt good about what I saw. A weight had (literally) been lifted off my shoulders. You could finally see the rest of my body, and I no longer had to wear large or extra large tops and dresses to accommodate my chest. What I was most excited for was not having to wear a bra all the time. I was finally freed from my underwire cage and I was never going back.
There are, admittedly, some downsides to the surgery. While my surgeon told me that I would lose sensation in my breasts that would eventually come back, most of it still hasn’t. And while my boobs are a lot smaller than before, going from an H cup to a DD, I still deal with some of the problems that I had before, like not fitting into certain tops, but obviously on a much less severe level. Of course, the thing with this surgery is that your doctor can only remove so much breast tissue, or else your nipple faces the possibility of dying. Also, if you eventually decide to get pregnant in the future there, is the possibility that your breasts will just grow back to the same size they were before, as well as the fact that you might not be able to breastfeed.
However, despite some of my grievances with the outcome, I still believe to this day that it’s the best decision I ever made for myself. The body I used to hide in shame has now become a body that I love. I feel like a completely different person in the best way possible. I no longer feel like my boobs enter the room before I do. I can finally wear the clothes I always wanted to wear, and most importantly, I don’t have to wear a bra if I don’t want to. To anyone who feels the same as I once did and is considering a breast reduction, I say go for it. My surgery changed my life in the best way possible and I wouldn’t take it back for anything.