2 Kids, 37kgs Lost and No Confidence! - Bangkok, Thailand

3 months after my op I'm very happy with the results. My left side is still slightly higher on my chest and every now and then I get a little pain on this side but otherwise I feel completely normal and am back into doing all my exercising and living heavier weights than I was pre-op! My breasts still aren't 'perfect' which sometimes gets me a little down, and I'm wishing now that'd I'd gotten round implants so that I had more cleavage, but generally I am very happy and think it's a massive improvement on what I was before! My scars are all healed after a bit of an infection and they are now starting to fade in most areas!

I piled on weight after the birth of my second son. After turning 30 I realised I had to do something and I pretty much turned my life around and I'm becoming healthier every day. But as the weight faded away so do my boobs! In a bra they still didn't look that bad, but take them off and they were uneven saggy sacks ... not a good look when I'm a swim teacher and spend nearly all day every day in togs with no support that flatten out my chest! My husband and I talked about when we were done having kids I'd get a lift and last year we decided the baby making was over so we started saving.

I looked at having surgery here in Australia but to get them done locally was going to cost over $15,000aus (and that was with a government rebate as our youngest child was under 7 and a lift is classed as 'reconstructive')! And I'd heard of a few botched jobs from other major cities in Aus so when a friend told me she was going to Thailand and using an agency to organise everything I had to seriously look at it. At first I was against going overseas but once I looked into how good the hospital and Dr's were and that for approx $8000 I could have my lift, implants and fly back insurance incase anything happens once I'm back in Australia I was sold! For the $15,000aus my family and I had 18 days in Thailand and I came home with nice boobs!!! I was worried we'd pay all that money and I'd ruin my families holiday by being unable to do anything but after my 3 nights in hospital I came out with only minor pain and we shopped, elephant trekked, toured the islands etc etc the entire time!

The staff in the hospitals over there were so, so, so very lovely and helpful and caring! I can't rave about them enough. Dr Narongdej was very blunt but honest and I liked that. I went into our consultation with a stack of photos I liked and didn't like but he didn't even want to look at them! At first this upset me, but he said my expectations were too high and that I had my own boobs and he could only do what he could do with 'those boobs' he couldn't make them look like anyone else's .... One piece of advice if you want your boobs 'done', remember a lot of breast enhancement photos are of young women who still have 'a blank canvas' with their boobs. Once kids and weightless change the shape of your boobs it makes it much harder to get them 'perfect'. Mine aren't perfect ... they are slightly more out to the side and still a little more uneven than I'd have liked, but when you compare them to my 'before' I am extremely happy and so is my husband. In a bra they look bloody amazing!!! Dr. N also gave me good advice about not going to big and he was always full of smiles.

I went through Destination Beauty and going through an agency made everything so much easier! We still organised our own travel and accommodation (through Flight Centre) but everything 'hospital' based was organised by DB. What I wasn't expecting was on the day of my surgery there was a consultant there from Destination Beauty the entire time helping me make decisions, popping her head in for quick chats while I waited with my family in my private room and then visiting me everyday after the surgery to see how I was recovering. She was also there for my post check up before flying home. I was so very grateful that she was there, she was so lovely and calm that she eased my nervousness, if I'd organised everything on my own I wouldn't have had that. My only down side is that I was misquoted on 2 items for my surgery - first was I was quoted for teardrop implants but when I got there this was incorrect and I had to pay an extra $300aus and 2nd was I was quoted $80aus for 2 support bras but this was only for 1. I wasn't too upset though because we'd been told to save a bit extra just in case.

Since coming home my consultant at DB has emailed Dr N with any dumb questions I've had about after care and they've all been more than happy to answer them. The whole experience was great and came home with a confidence I haven't had since pre-kids!

My advice -
1. Really suss out your options - locally isn't always better just because it's closer, with todays technology another country isn't that far away.
2. Use an agency. I loved Destination Beauty! They took the unknown element out of everything for me.
3. Don't compare yourself to photos on the net unless they have a before photo of something similar to yours. A few days after I came home and looked at pictures of other boobs and a friend who had her boobs done I was so unhappy with mine that they still weren't 100% perfect. But then I looked at my before photo and realised they are 100% on what they were! We women need stop comparing, especially if we have had kids etc! (Plus I'm still only 4wks post op so my swelling hasn't completely gone down yet).

The biggest struggle through all of this ... Not being able to exercise like I used to for 3mths ... I'm counting the days ... now I have to make my abs look as hot as my boobs!!!