The Shape of Me (Patreon)

When a woman wants breast implants, the surgeon has a couple of options at his disposal (was going to use a gender-neutral pronoun, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any female plastic surgeons, so ‘his’ works).

He can either put the implant in the breast pocket, basically inside the breast if the already-existing boob is large enough (or just under the skin for our flat-chested friends). This gives a much more natural appearance to the breast, where it hangs, sways, and feels almost like the real thing.

Or, he can put it behind the chest muscles, between the ribcage and the pectorals. This results in a “high-profile” appearance, otherwise affectionately known among many a bored, rich, 40-something housewife who always keeps a bottle of rosé close at hand, as “porn star tits.”

Most women, once they hit a certain age, tend to go with the latter. A former client of mine was actually the wife of a plastic surgeon. During our first Skype conversation, she mentioned that she’d already had her three children, and dissatisfied with how her body had progressed, opted for the under-the-muscle treatment to restore her boobs to their former glory.

“You don’t even need to wear a bra,” she said. “Or if you do, it can just be pretty.” She was quick to pan her laptop screen downward to give me a better look. She said she was only about five-foot-one, but that when she met her husband in college, she was a 32DDD. Her three kids shrank her boobs down a bit, and gave them the saggy appearance of fulfilling a biological function. But if you’re married to a plastic surgeon? I dunno. Fringe benefits. To each their own, but I would count my blessings and coast to old age with a perky boost of self-confidence by just getting a lift, instead of diving back into having a-teeen-hut! half-orbs protruding my your chest like those hurricane-proof dome houses you see in little beach towns. But again, to each their own. 

Interestingly, she never knew about my body, having only ever seen me from the collarbone up. Her openness was probably the result of practice. That, or I just seem trustworthy — I was only being hired to revamp their clinic’s website text, so a lot of this personal information was unsolicited. She seems like the kind of woman who would have been mortified to know that she was prattling on about her boob problems and solutions to a woman with tits larger than her head. I don’t hold it against her. 

I think I’ve made it clear by now, but I get asked so often, that I feel compelled to utter it as a self-contained sentence: I do not have implants. My breasts are natural. And they are what you might describe as… pendulous. 

Before my short pregnancy four years ago, I’d never had children, so my breasts stayed pretty much the same through my 20s. They had endured a little bit of a natural pull downwards, but gravity and I were never enemies. My upper chest sloped downward, filling out as my skin gradually approached caramel nipples that, for the most part, pointed outward.

If my left breast was the perky girl at high school with the pom-poms and the hot boyfriend, my right breast was the nice, but kinda dumpy nerd with a bit of an emo streak in her. I think it was the way they were proportioned… Natalia was the bright-eyed, perky thing without a care in the world; Olga looked a little more puffy and heavy, and was always about a cup larger than her sister. 

Yes, they have names. I was on a Russian literature kick in college, so sue me.

Natalia passed the pencil test. Olga (still the larger one to this day), folded at the underboob, leaving just enough of an overhang to keep a No. 2 in place. My right nipple was more introverted than my left, but the areola was a little bigger. I guess it’s because she was always looking down a little that Olga always seemed a little bummed out. 

Every woman has complaints about her body, and before Buzzfeed started broadcasting this body positivity message-for-sale to the world, it’s easy to grow up thinking you’re the only one who has lopsided boobies. Turns out lots of women do. Contrary to popular belief, we do not stay up all night showing our boobs to each other in the co-ed dorms. We usually just ate food and watched dumb TV.

Anyway, that was my complaint. In hindsight especially, they actually looked pretty great: they balanced out the barrel-y ribcage I inherited from my father’s side of the family. Those gripes seem pretty small-potatoes today, I suppose.

When my breasts started to grow, again, at the dawn of my 30s, it didn’t take long to notice that the bulk of the new weight was concentrating where my breasts were already their fullest. It started as a kind of swelling like I would get during my period, but not as achy and tender. After a couple of months had passed, I could tell the skin was a little firmer than it had been before, which was actually kind of nice. It was like pumping a little hit of air into a half-deflated party balloon two days after the shindig. Pleasantly filled out again, so at least I got something in exchange for the hormonal chaos my body was going through.

[Ed. Note: It’s the period in the three years following this that will constitute a lot of my diary entries going forward, so I’ll save the infinite minutia for future posts. Suffice it to say, “pleasantly filled out” evolved into what I am today, and into what Natalia and Olga became.] 

A lot of people assume I have the first kind of implant — the in-the-pocket one. Some women go for ones like that, but most don’t. After a certain size, implants like that are subject to gravity. Supported only by skin, everything stretches. The more subtle among you might refer to these as “hangers.” (Yes, boob girl is up on all that hip boob-related slang.) I always wonder why so many people just assume that I’m a dancer or something; has anyone ever met a real, live person out there who would get implants this big? I know they exist, but it’s not like you’re going to run into them at Walmart. Seems like Ockham’s razor would suggest this girl in the ill-fitting sweater is just busty as hell. 

A lot of women don’t want hangers. I didn’t want hangers. But as fat began to compound in my breast pockets, the new girth found the path of least resistance, growing outward, then downward. Refer to party balloon analogy above, but forgetting to turn the nozzle off. 

I don’t think I ever got close to popping (let’s keep the metaphor going!). Or even worse, having any skin injuries. I’ve done some research, and there are some pretty grizzly pictures out there of women who have had a similar condition. Maybe it’s healthy skin, medicated cream helped, but most of all, my skin had time to stretch. I do count my blessings. Some of the medical journals talk about women who grew way larger than me in only a matter of months. I had years to adapt. You take the little victories where you can.

Though it’s not like I wasn’t getting close to some dangerous waters. A year ago, when the growth pretty much ceased, I was getting close to running out of space. Skin only stretches so far. I can already feel how much looser my skin is compared to a year ago. How I can press firm dimples into them with my fingertips… last year, they felt much firmer.

I guess I haven’t thought about it too much, but I’m starting to really wonder how my breasts are going to change now that my skin is getting “used to it.” They’ve already settled below my belly button, and when they finally flatten out a little, are they going to be at my hips or something? At least they won’t stick out so much. I still can’t work this belly off (not that I get a lot of cardio these days), so maybe I’ll just be able to flatten them down with a bunch of tight shirts and just look fat. 

Meh. There are worse things. Ingrid Bergman said she loved starring in “The Bells of St. Mary’s.” She played a nun, and spent the whole movie in billowing robes and a habit that covered her chin and neck. She said it was the only movie she ever filmed where she didn’t have to be thin, so she was pleased as punch to let her diet run away on her. 

Maybe I’ll just get me to a nunnery.

April 2018