Tattooed Ta-tas?

I can't believe that I am rethinking my policy on getting a tattoo.

If you don't know me well,
then you might not know that I do not like tattoos.
My husband likes them, and apparently so do lots of other folks.
Until recently, I thought that ink wasn't for me.
Now I am seriously considering getting two of them -
one on each breast.

No one is more surprised about this change of heart than I am.
But last week I had a completely unexpected encounter.

I was in Houston visiting my family, when I interrupted my mother, who was getting undressed.
My brain scrambled to make sense of what I was looking at:
My
Mother
Has
Areolas!
And if I'd stood there long enough, I'm sure I would have noticed that she had nipples too.

What did I expect?
I guess I expected hers to look like mine,
minus the mastectomy scars.
The last time I'd seen those two "additions" was November 2009.
It had been years since I'd glimpsed my mother's ta-tas,
or anyone else's for that matter.


Not everyone will agree with me, but
it IS possible to forget how they are SUPPOSED to look.

Since donating my breasts to science,
I have grown accustomed to looking at myself in the mirror each morning and thinking - that doesn't look so bad...
okay, that's not completely true.
This ripply-implant-thing is just downright weird-looking.
But ignoring that,
I love the idea of getting away with NOT having to wear a bra.
Without a bull's eye on my breast,
a sheer t-shirt has nothing to reveal:
no push-up padding, no straps, no nothing.

On the other hand,
I cannot go bra-less with the rippled implants I currently have.
So, who knows?
Once the implants are replaced,
and fat is injected to smooth-out my skin,
I might go for the tatts.

After all, I could do a lot worse,
than simply looking like my mother.


(Were you expecting a picture of something else?)

The Uni-Boob

So I finally got my explanation.
I now know why my breast size is smaller than its original packaging.

My doctor believed that I would probably want to avoid:
THE UNI-BOOB!

We've all seen it. Maybe you've even experienced it personally, while wearing a tight-fitting sports bra. Without the bra, you have two. But after squeezing into the breast compressor, you find that your two breasts have morphed into one.

There's also a medical term for it: Symmastia (or medial mal-position). It occurs when breast implants move too far toward the midline. In some cases, the implants may touch one another in the center of the chest. It happens when a surgeon is too aggressive with his/her attempts to alter chest wall anatomy (i.e., trying too hard to increase a patient's cleavage).

In my case, my pectoral muscles are anatomically far apart and so are (were) my breasts. My surgeon was unable to move them closer together without risking the creation of the uni-boob.
After complaining in my last blog, I now agree with his decision to leave them in their natural locations.
After all, I'm not much of a risk-taker.

The Solution?
One part patience; one part silicone; and one part fat.

For the next few months, we will see how the implant rests in the pocket.
(I'm getting in-touch with my inner pool table.)
By then, the capsule (i.e., scar tissue surrounding the implant) should have either shrunk enough to make the implant appear less rippled or will have to be replaced.

My surgeon is betting on the latter.
He thinks it will probably take two or three more sessions to revise my breasts and make them look better.
Part of his solution will include replacing the existing implants with slightly larger ones.
The other part of his plan will be to graph fat from another part of my body and add it to my breast.

(Let me stop right here to inform you, and you know who you are, this is not an invitation for you to start offering me your excess flesh.)

"Even with thin women, I can usually find some fat to use," he assures me,
assuming I need assurance.
I stand up and introduce him to my stomach.
After the births of three babies: 8.6 lbs., 10 lbs., and 7.14 lbs.,
finding body fat is not a problem.

REALITY:
I will never have cleavage.
No one will ever stare at my breast and whisper, "are those real?"

I have adjusted my expectations,
again.
Come August, I look forward to adjusting my bra size too,
hopefully for the last time.