"I was an 8E at 13"

My Breast Reduction Journey

At 22, I decided to have a breast reduction and I would like to share my story.

I would love to say that making the decision to do it was easy. But it wasn’t - it was a decision that I mulled over for a very long time. I had gone back and forth on doing the procedure for years because there were so many factors and risks that I had to consider and accept before I felt like I was able to fully say that I was ready for the procedure. I had always loved my body and I am lucky to have grown up in such a beautiful and supportive body positive home. I didn’t have the same insecurities I guess most young woman experienced because I was always shown what was normal. Although I loved my body the way it was, growing up with extremely large breasts was far from easy.

I started wearing underwire bras in when I was about 10. I remember being fitted for an 8E bra when I was 13. At 16, I had to order bras online because my home town’s local bra store didn’t stock anything above an F cup in a back size 10. I was constantly sexualised by men and assumed to be older because of my breasts. When I was older and was exploring my sexuality, I found a lot of my male peers would treat me as a trophy because of how uniquely large my chest was. It was so horrible to be reduced to such a small part of my body and being. My body constantly ached from the pressure and weight my breasts put on my chest, rib cage, shoulders, neck and back. I constantly had migraines too.

There are so many stories that I could share right now that truly described my experience growing up but I’m afraid that this story would turn into a novel if I told them all. The day I decided that I had enough was one of the hardest days that I had with my body. At the beginning of the day, I was at Uni. I completing my science degree and was spending the morning in the lab. This particular day, the bra I had worn was getting old and the wires were starting to dig into me but it was one of the only bras that fit me the best since my last fitting. Bras for people with large breasts are SUPER EXPENSIVE so I had to either wear a bra until it fell apart or I grew out of it. During class, my back was killing me from leaning over a microscope and lab notes all morning so I arched back to stretch it. A fellow male colleague made a comment towards me about my lab coat popping from the pressure of my breasts as I stretched and that I should dress more appropriately for a lab. Still to this day, I don’t know what was wrong with my jeans and baggy plain t-shirt (plus lab coat) look that I had chosen to wear that day but it was a disgusting comment and it really made me feel like shit. I left the class and skipped my next lecture to go buy a new bra because every time I felt the wires dig into my chest and ribs, I felt like it was a reminder of how annoying my breasts were and I could feel myself being sent into a self-loathing spiral. A new supportive bra that fit was all that I needed.

I walked from my Uni to a bra shop that was nearby that specialised in larger breasts. I picked some bras out in the next cup size up from what I was currently wearing and tried them on. I was too big for them already. My breasts were popping out. The sales lady came in to fit me. She checked the size that I was wearing and went to see if she could find something better. She told me that they didn’t stock anything larger and gave me a card to a lady that made customised bras. I remember thinking “Great, my bras just doubled in price!”. That was the last fitting that I had before my reduction and at that stage, she suggested that I would fit into a 10I.

I felt so disheartened that I cried while walking back to uni. On my walk back, I was waiting to cross the street at a light and a man sitting in his car yelled vulgar comments about my breasts to me as he drove past. I couldn’t believe it! I had over 10 years of experiences like that, but that day was definitely the worst. I didn’t go back to Uni, I went straight home and called my Mum and cried my heart out to her. It was that conversation with my mum that the penny dropped and I knew it was time.

One of the biggest questions I had leading up to the decision was “how can I love my body this much but I want to change her so drastically?” I soon came to realise that the reasons for wanting a breast reduction were not coming from a place of self-hate, but a place of self-care. And that was okay. For the sake of my mental health and physical health, I needed this. All the other issues/questions I had with getting the procedure (such as – will I be able to breast feed afterwards, what will my healed scars look like, will I like the way I look with smaller breasts?) didn’t seem like such an issue once I started researching it better. The best thing I did once I decided that I wanted to go through with this was join a Facebook Group that was a support page for people undergoing Breast Reductions and Augmentations. There were so many threads and experiences shared. It was amazing. To anyone who is considering having one done – my best advice is to join a support page. There are so many people who are on the same journey as you and it will be the best source of information you will ever find.

The next step in my journey was finding a surgeon. Once I decided on one, I booked a consultation with him. I asked my mum to come with me for support. During the consult, my surgeon asked me to remove my top and bra off so he could look at my breast and explain the procedure to me. I was sitting behind a curtain topless. The surgeon pulled back the curtain and actually said “Holy Crap!” He instantly apologised for his unprofessionalism and quickly explained that he was shocked to find such large full breast on someone with such a small frame. I remember giggling and thinking to myself “this guy sees big breasts all day and he is even shocked at my size. I’m definitely making the right choice”. Throughout the consult, he explained that my procedure would be considered a medical surgery and not a cosmetic surgery due to the amount of tissue I will have removed. He wrote me a letter to give to medicare and my private health insurance which stated “My patient is suffering from excessively large breasts”. I laughed at that because I was suffering and finally someone could fix it. I left the consult with a surgery booked for 5 weeks later.

The day of my surgery was so emotional! I was nervous, excited and full of anticipation. My surgeon let me pick a song to play in the OR while I was being put under. I chose Happy by Pharrell Williams because it seemed appropriate! I woke up a few hours later feeling a little bit tender (thank you pain meds!) but feeling very positive. The first thing I did was look down and honestly I couldn’t believe how flat I was! I COULD SEE MY TOES!!! I could feel the weight difference in my chest with every breath I was taking. I really noticed the difference when I tried to go to the toilet for the first time – my centre of gravity was so off that I actually paged a nurse to help me get out of bed and off the toilet because I was worried about falling over! My surgeon came and saw me the next day. He removed the bandages and was super happy with how I was looking. He told me I had 1.7kgs from one breast and 1.8kgs removed from the other (3.5 kgs removed from my chest!!). Honestly it was amazing!

About 4 days after my surgery, I noticed my left nipple and areola turning purple. I sent a text with a photo of it to my surgeon to see if it was just bruising (I had a lot of bruising!) and he asked me to come by his office first thing in the morning. By the morning, my nipple and part of my areola had started to turn black! He told me my skin was necrotic (meaning there was no fresh blood being supplied to the tissues and my skin was dying). This is one of the risks of a breast reduction. He could see that the tissue beneath the first few layers of skin were fine. This meant he could save my nipple by shaving the dead layers of skin off. This essentially left my nipple an open wound and I wouldn’t know how much feeling I would have in my nipple or what it would look like until I had fully healed which took months. My surgeon was so apologetic, but I wasn’t upset. I was well informed about the risks of surgery and this was one of them. Let’s be real though – I’d rather lose my nipple completely than have to deal with the breastly burden my body had been dealing with for more than 10 years.

About a week post op, I went on my first public outing – to the grocery store with my mum. Halfway through shopping I started to sob uncontrollably. My mum was really worried that I was in pain or something was wrong but it wasn’t anything like that at all. For the first time in my adult life, complete strangers were looking me in the eyes first before looking at my body. I didn’t realise until that moment that no one, and I literally mean no one, did that before my surgery. I don’t blame people for looking at my breasts first – they were HUGE beforehand. People are naturally curious and they didn’t mean to look (most of the time anyway). But I didn’t realise how much it had affected me. From that moment, my confidence soared even more as I did all sorts of “firsts” such as buying a bikini, sexy lingerie, a strapless bra and shirts in my ACTUAL size for the first time. My style of clothing changed drastically (from baggy clothes to accommodate my breasts to tight fitting clothes to accentuate my new figure). Once I was healed I went running – something that was absolutely impossible for me to do before. I bought crop tops to wear at the gym for the first time and went braless everywhere (I still do that haha). I cried when I was fitted for the first time. My new size is a 12DD/E. I know to a lot of women that’s huge still but remember I was an I cup beforehand. I know I’m still large breasted but I feel so small now in comparison.

Today is exactly 4 years since my surgery. My nipple, and the rest of the scars, have healed nicely. They are hardly noticeable. My nipples do not match. My left nipple looks a little dodgy from the scarring but I’m not ashamed of it. It has most of its feeling and it reacts when it’s stimulated. I have had people recommend cosmetic tattooing to make them match or hide the scars but I don’t want that. It’s part of my breast reduction story and I am so proud of my journey that I can’t see myself changing it. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to breast feed when I choose to have children, but I do know that I will be a healthier Mum. My body feels and looks exactly how I have always seen it. I feel so much more womanly and I am in love with my body more than ever.

A vaginismus story and the power of consent.

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