34yrs Old, BF 4 Kids, Small 34A, 300cc HP Cohesive Gel Unders - Tacoma, WA

Feeling good at 5 weeks! I often don't even notice them. I woke up yesterday sleeping on my stomach. Whoops. I haven't started working out again, besides a little bit here and there. I want to wait until 6 weeks before hitting it hard again.

I LOVE THEM. I really didn't expect to feel this way. It is so wonderful to wear clothes I couldn't wear before. The biggest example are those sporty short dresses with the shelf-bras. I can wear one without an extra strapless bra underneath! Feels so good to be braless.

One of my fears before surgery is that they would end up too big and make me look heavy or matronly. If you are concerned about this going into surgery, I would just say take a lot of time looking at pics and researching size. I am happy to report that I can wear all of my before clothes and basically look the same, but a little better. I And I don't have to wear hugely padded bras. I didn't want anyone to be able to tell I had it done. I can hide them, or play them up.

I've told my mom and sister, but not my Dad and brother. Most of my husband's immediate family knows, including the men. This doesn't bother me at all, as his family is awesome and hugely supportive. I have not told any of my friends. One of my best friends knew I was considering it last fall. I'm worried that she might ask me. If someone makes a comment that they look big, I'll just say "I've gained weight" which is true. But if I get asked directly, I can't think of any way around it. I'll have to tell. I'm just praying that this doesn't happen in a group setting with lots of people around. Most of our friends are pretty conservative, and I'm not sure that they would understand my decision.

I have not told my kids. I didn't even use the word "surgery" cause kids repeat everything! We used verbiage like "Mommy has a Dr apptmt" and "mommy still isn't feeling well after her Dr apptmt" and "you need to be big helpers for a while since mommy still is tired." But overall we have said very little. I'm very fortunate that my big kids really help out with the younger ones. My older daughter did all the diaper changes and baths on the 2 year old for the first week. I'm not walking around topless but I'm not hiding them either, so it's kinda weird that they haven't noticed anything, since they saw the full extent of my flatness beforehand more than anyone else. Kids can be surprisingly oblivious.

I take that back, my two year old knows. About 2 days after surgery she had a big fall, and I was holding her on the couch comforting her. And she started patting my breast and said "Have baby?" I said "No, I'm not having a baby." She thought for a little bit, rubbed and patted it some more and then said "That. That." As if to say, "well if you're not having a baby, then what's THAT?" My husband witnessed the whole thing and we were cracking up. Maybe it's her connection to nursing not so long ago, or maybe it's just because she's around me the most.

I do have an awareness that they are not permanent. It's not a cloud hanging over me or anything. I just know that they will be coming out someday. All good things must come to an end. I might re-implant, or I might go back to being mostly flat-chested again. Maybe I'll get 12 years out of these implants. Maybe I'll get capsular contracture next month and have to get them out (I likely won't re-implant if I get CC). Again, it's like a relationship, I just want to love and enjoy them as much as possible while I have them. "Better to have had boobs and lost, then to have never had boobs at all." Or something like that, haha.

You would think that someone like me who was freaked out about silicone illness would be all over the MRIs. But I've decided that as long as my breasts feel good and I feel good - no headaches, body pain or unexplained fatigue - I'm not going to schedule regular MRIs.

We went to the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Nationals on Saturday. First time taking my new body "out." I felt like I was getting slightly more male attention than usual. But surprisingly I never caught a single person looking at my chest. Maybe the male attention had more to do with the crowd demographic, hahaha.

It's funny because they feel so huge to me still. But looking at pictures, they are just average to small. Which is what I wanted. So I'm really happy that I got a size that feels big and ample to me, but that isn't drawing eyes towards my chest.

Here I am at post op day 12 feeling surprisingly good! I don't think about my boobs constantly throughout the day like I did at first, probably because they don't hurt all throughout the day. My nipples are pretty sensitive, which they weren't the first week, so I'm assuming that's from the implants dropping. I'm still sleeping on my back, which I'm not a big fan of. If I roll over to my side, my breasts start aching. So back-sleeping it is, with the help of 6 pillows.

I have my very first post-op apptmt tomorrow, so I'm excited to hear what my Dr says. The right breast is definitely a lot softer and squishier, but maybe that's just because it's smaller. The left one has softened up a lot too, but it's a little firmer than the right.

I've started working out again. 3 mile walks, and lower body and abs stuff. Nothing at all that uses my chest muscles, nothing with jumping or bouncing.

Long rambling ahead!!! Before I had surgery, my husband gave me a pep talk. He said the process of shopping and getting implants to looking for a spouse and getting married. The essence of what he said is:

When you are looking for a spouse, you get to be super picky. Look at every fault and analyze every personality trait. Don't be fooled by lovey-dovey feelings, you really need to assess if this person is going to be a good fit with you. But then after marriage, you stop picking them apart. You have to make the choice to love that person in spite of their flaws and no matter what happens.

So it's the same with boobs. When you are looking at sizes, you spend way too much time analyzing boobs. And you should! You consider details about breasts that you never even thought about before. You go into your surgery with your wish list of the perfect boobs. But once that surgery is done, you have to stop the comparing. Get off RealSelf if you have to. You have to decide that you are going to love your breasts no matter what their flaws are.

That's not to say you should ignore capsular contracture or legitimate health issues of course. Just found that advice to be helpful for my mental sanity and wanted to share. :)

Would I have been happy if I had chosen 275cc? Yah, they'd be smaller but I probably would. What if I would have went for a mod + profile instead of high? Yah, I think I would. What if I had done what my surgeon suggested and went with 350cc ultra high? It would have been a slightly different look and I do question if I would have kept all sensation throughout the process like I did with the smaller implants, but I think I could be just as happy with those also. However I think that what I got is the perfect thing for me, because I've made to choice to believe that they are the perfect thing for me.

So let's stop dwelling on the "what ifs" and love ourselves as we are. Pretty ironic advice on a site for plastic surgery and from someone who just had implants put in, I know. But no matter how many improvements we have or haven't done to our bodies, it's my hope that we come to a place of acceptance with our bodies. For many years, I was inwardly judgmental of those that chose plastic surgery, but now I realize that choice is not as black and white as I used to think. Our reasons and motivations behind these decisions are deep and complicated and vary so much among women. Maybe you find that acceptance of yourself through surgery, maybe it's through the decision to not have surgery. Maybe it's through putting something into your body, maybe it's through taking something out. May God grant you the peace that you seek, however that may come about.