Big Boobs Aren’t Better
My Life as a Buxom Broad
“Bigger isn’t better, better is better,” I told my husband. His eyes seemed to light up at that idea. We were discussing whether or not I should have breast reduction surgery.
I’m not a fan of hospitals or invasive procedures, up to that moment only having had my wisdom teeth extracted and laser eye surgery to correct severe nearsightedness. This would be real surgery and parts of my body would look different, and there would be scars.
But I was willing to live with scars because I was more than ready to reduce the triple D, post-nursing, sagging, old lady breasts from my 125-pound frame.
Breasts had been my signature calling card, so to speak, since the fourth grade. One of the first, if not the first, girls in grade school to develop, my mom insisted I wear a bra by the time spring of fourth grade rolled around. Let’s just say there were more than daffodils budding!
I was still playing kickball in the streets, walking barefoot in the mud, and setting up Barbie in her state of the art camper, but I complied with my mom’s request. She was right, of course, and years later I would understand why as I remembered old man Wilkins, my fourth-grade teacher, touching all the young girls on their backs to see if we were wearing bras. What we would call a predator today, or at least a pervert, was just odd behavior in the ’70s.
From fourth-grade on, my breasts were never out of sight or out of mind. They grew and with them grew the attention of boys and men, some wanted, most not. Sweaty-palmed, adolescent boys talking to my chest with spittle slipping from the corners of their mouths became the norm of interaction throughout junior high and into high school.
My brains, my ability to pull the same grades as them in honors classes were eclipsed by my adult-sized breasts on my petite frame. I was Mary with the big tits, not Mary who pulled A’s in English without trying or Mary who had an aptitude for languages and could learn Spanish without taking a book home to study.
At my sister’s wedding, I served as a bridesmaid at the ripe old age of 13. My partner in the wedding, a grown man, suggested we “step outside for a breath of fresh air.” That sounded like a familiar line from The Love Boat and I knew that inhaling the evening air wasn’t what he really had on his mind, so I declined.
Later he confessed he thought I was 16, still an inappropriate gesture from an adult man, but again, this was the’70’s and well, boys will be boys, and after all, I was the temptress in my little floral print bridesmaid dress. Those darn boobs, why didn’t I do something about them?
Trust me, I didn’t ask for big boobs!
Over time my breasts grew, despite the fact I was never overweight. A full C became a D with pregnancy and double D’s as I nursed. Poor little Ryan, born under seven pounds was smothered by my breasts; the nurses chuckled as they showed me how to feed him using the football hold.
Don’t worry, they’ll go away after you nurse, everyone assured me. But no, my breasts, like The Blob, in the corny sci-fi movie from the '50s, only picked up steam and kept growing.
As I nursed my second baby, I developed a disturbing rash under my left breast and down the length of my left side. Thinking it was a heat rash from breastfeeding in the summer, I visited a doctor. She was young, fresh out of medical school, and she asked me to lie down on the examining table.
Embarrassed, I complied only to snicker when I saw her embarrassment outdo mine as she attempted to lift my breast from the table and restore it to its proper place on my body on the front of my chest. “Maybe you better sit up,” she finally conceded.
After two babies, my breasts were larger than ever and showed no signs of retreating. Double D became triple and when the young, perky, B-cup Victoria Secrets sales clerk measured me, and rather sheepishly suggested I move into the next letter of the alphabet, I bolted from the store.
Have you ever tried to find a bathing suit that accommodates a triple D breast with a size 5 hips?
And if I found a top and bottom that matched I had to add extra lift and support and fasteners to keep my boobs from falling out at public pools and looking like two sagging wine sacks strapped to the front of my body.
Triple-tied at the base of my neck and fastened with safety pins, I “casually” rested on the beach, my neck and shoulders burning with pain, daydreaming of sunbathing in the south of France where I could rip off that top and be free!
Tiny A and B cupped women looked so appealing to me as they cheerfully navigated the step aerobics routine at the gym in their skimpy workout tops. I layered on my uniform before entering the gym: a regular underwire bra, followed by an exercise bra (because if I only wore the stretchy workout bra, my boobs would slide under the elastic band!) and topped with a tight workout top with a shelf bra for extra support.
And still, when it was time to jog in place, I often chose to walk in place or wrap my arms across my chest. Jogging — not gonna happen!
I didn’t know it for a while, but a fellow exerciser shared with me that I was known at the club as “the girl with the big boobs and nice legs.” I was flattered by the “nice legs” compliment.
Big boobs were interfering with my life in big ways!
My neck hurt every day, I couldn’t wear button-down blouses without a gap or beginning the buttoning process at my ribs. I figured this was a burden I just had to live with until my sister-in-law went under the knife. Maybe someday, I thought, it could be possible to live without pain.
A friend suggested I’d look so much thinner and the fruits of all my workout efforts would be evident if my boobs didn’t dominate my entire upper torso. Another seed was planted and I began to seriously entertain the idea of surgery to bring some relief to my life.
She was right, of course. At 5’4" and 125 pounds, there wasn’t anywhere for these monsters to go but sit on my chest and belly, despite my best efforts to hike them high, creating permanent creases in my shoulders from the two-inch-thick bra straps.
My bras were not delicate lingerie in polka dots and lacy pink designs. My size bra came in three colors: white, beige, and black, and resembled more of a harness than sexy undergarments used to enhance my sex life.
But once that bra came off, I was more disheartened. At 38, my boobs were the boobs of a 70-year-old woman. I’m not being melodramatic here — I’ll get to the proof in a minute — let’s just say they pointed south.
I’d already had early mammograms done because I was prone to breast cysts, common with large breasts, and better safe than sorry, right? The mammograms confirmed what I already knew. Those girls were heavy! Almost 100% breast tissue with no fat. Even if I starved myself to death, my boobs would never shrink.
It began to dawn on me that surgery would be my only option. But, I was reluctant and afraid of going under general anesthesia — until an embarrassing moment one night on a beach in Michigan gave me the resolve I needed.
We had been vacationing with our friends and had just wrapped up a fun-filled day of swimming, kayaking, and S’mores by the campfire under a sparkling sky. We said goodnight, retreated to our cabins where I unstrapped myself from the armor used to keep my girls at bay and put on my pajamas.
With a sigh of relief, I sank into the futon to read a book when we heard fireworks shooting off nearby. The kids rushed out the door and I followed as all the families clustered together in the sand to watch the impromptu fireworks display.
As we were breaking up to head back to our respective cabins, my friends’ 14-year-old son inched closer to me with a confused and curious look on his face. In the dark, with the glow of porch lights and the moon, I could catch his eyes focusing on my chest. Just as I became self-conscious and started having flashbacks to junior high, he exclaimed, with relief, “Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Gallagher! I was wondering who this old lady was on the beach with us!”
Out of the mouths of babes, am I right?!?
My decision was made that night. I would pursue plastic surgery to reduce my breasts and restore my body to normal proportions.
It was easy to convince the insurance company that my claim was health-related: pictures of the grooves in my shoulders, years of physical therapy and chiropractic care to relieve neck and shoulder pain, and a BMI of only 22.
There would be scars
The surgeon emphasized scarring. She showed me pictures of where she would cut and how I would look post-surgery. She even explained, in great detail, that my nipples would be removed and sewn back on, possibly resulting in loss of sensation.
There were risks as with any surgery, of course, and it was not something I entered into lightly, but I was ready to lighten my load and rid myself of these beasts that seemed to have a mind of their own. I was only 40, what would they look like at 50 and 60 and 70? I could not imagine and didn’t want to find out!
“Make me a small B,” I pleaded with my surgeon. She laughed and replied that she couldn’t work miracles! A size C was the best she could do but assured me they would be lifted up and no longer a heavy burden on me.
After the surgery she shared that my breasts were “extremely dense” and it was no wonder I had been in pain. She removed almost four pounds of breast tissue and I was still a size most women dream of being and pay to become!
I cried the first time I removed my post-surgery bra. I gasped when I saw all the stitches from my nipples to under my breasts and all along the undersides forming what the surgeon had called the anchor stitch, along with stitches all around each nipple where they had been reattached.
“I’m deformed!” I cried and begged my husband to call his sister who had undergone this surgery a few months prior to mine. In fact, she had helped convince me by explaining that the best part of having breast reduction surgery is “when you get out of bed in the morning, your boobs come with you!”
She calmed me down by explaining everything looks worse after surgery, once the stitches were out the healing process could kick in and I’d be fine. I stopped crying but purchased every scar reducing product I could find, determined to reduce those scars as much as possible. Why? Who would see them except my husband and me? Vanity, I suppose.
But as I healed and understood my liberation from the tyranny of large breasts, I became less concerned about the scars. I could buy purple bras and animal print bras and I could comfortably wear a bathing suit to the beach without fear of sudden exposure.
I could sit down without boobs resting on my belly and I could button a shirt again! Men weren’t talking to my chest anymore, they actually looked me in the eye when they said words, and I felt like I looked my age again.
Never again would I be mistaken for some “old lady on the beach” until I actually was an old lady on the beach. #lifegoals
Most often we associate scars with a negative experience. Unwanted surgery, accidents, and disfiguring events. Scars are negative — Simba’s uncle in The Lion King, the evil, jealous lion — was named Scar.
We don’t choose scars, they represent pain or unwelcome change. My scars did alter my life but they are evidence of my life chosen on my terms, of an opportunity to choose empowerment over circumstance, and I’m happy with my secret scars.
In the end, my body healed well and my scars are minimal, my husband can attest that bigger isn’t better — better is better, and I make jokes about my “refurbished” breasts. They’ve grown back a little and 13 years post-surgery they’re no longer as perky as they were, but whenever I lament about that my husband reminds me: “Just think about how they’d look if you hadn’t done the surgery.” Ah, good point!
Have you ever chosen a scar? Do your scars tell a story? What do your scars represent to you and who you’ve become?
Many thanks to Nikki Tate and her writing prompts that keep me telling my story. You can find more empowering stories for women here:
