Saggy Boobs

In celebration of ten years of Alamo City Moms, we’re sharing some of our favorite, most relatable, and best-loved content from the past. We hope you’ll enjoy a walk down memory lane with us, and realize that there are so many experiences of motherhood – shared from one mom to another – that bind us together. 

It happened one afternoon in late winter. I put my kids down for their afternoon naps, jumped in the shower, and went about my regular bathing routine. Unsuspectingly, I got out, dried myself off, towel-wrapped my hair, and turned around to face the mirror. There they were staring back at me: the saggy, limp what I can only describe as noodles, hanging off of my chest.

I ran buck naked across the house, charging into my husband’s office. He swiveled around in his chair, and a smile slowly crept across on his face. After all, it wasn’t often his wife came streaking into his office midday on a Tuesday.

“Wipe that smile off your face and look at me!” I yelled.

“Um, I am,” he said, confused as to what the heck was going on.

“No! Look at me. Or more specifically, look at my boobs!”

I saw his eyes slide down my body that was so familiar to him when the shock hit him.

“What happened?!” my husband exclaimed. “They look so weird. They’re, like, deflated.” He then realized what had come out of his mouth and tried making up for it by saying, “No, it’ll be great—something new and different!”

“YOU did this to me!” I yelled. “You and that…that…penis of yours!”

In two years, I had gone from pregnant to breastfeeding to pregnant to breastfeeding. At the time the “incident” happened, I had just finished weaning my youngest and this change seemed to happen overnight. I had always been told that motherhood would ruin your chest, but in a mere 24 hours, I went from bouncing grapefruits to deflated water balloons. Not only that, but they were concave: big hollow canyons with mounds at the bottom. Not my idea of ideal boobs.

The problem was, I had always had a love/hate relationship with those chest mounds, the twins. The cruel days of sixth- and seventh-grade dances when I was flat as a washboard came flashing back. No one wanted to slow dance with the flat-chested girl to Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “November Rain.” Overlooked time and time again at those dances I would come to loathe yet continued to attend in hopes that the tides would change, I rested my blame on my A-cup size. In eighth grade, the tides finally did start to turn, but I took little notice to the fact that those mounds were growing at rapid speed until Ross Nobles began calling me “Tissue” and telling everyone that I stuffed my bra. From that point on I got my wish—those suckers didn’t stop growing until I hit my junior year of high school. I was 5’7” and weighed 125 pounds…with size E knockers. Oh, and I ran cross-country and track. That was special.

It was at that point that I decided those wishes of my middle school days were all wrong, and I made the decision to chop ’em off. Off I went to the plastic surgeon for my breast reduction consultation, and he efficiently explained how they would do everything possible to save my milk ducts so that I could possibly breastfeed one day. My 17-year-old self promptly responded by saying that I had no plans of breastfeeding any child. That was disgusting, and he could forget that idea. Thankfully, my doctor realized he was speaking with a 17-year-old who had no clue what she was talking about and did everything in his power to preserve those precious ducts.

My surgery also left me with some pretty righteous scars, and the fact that my scars became keloids didn’t help. My self-consciousness from the earlier years resurfaced: Although I now looked totally normal with a shirt on, lines streaked my chest when topless.

Post-surgery, I was always told there was a 50/50 chance I could breastfeed, but I wouldn’t know until the time came. Fast forward 12 years later, and little did I know that my daughter would be born with a birth defect that would make my first experience in motherhood so different than what I had dreamed it would be. With an almost three-month NICU stay and my not being able to hold my baby until she was a week old, it was not the fairy tale-like motherhood I had signed up for. My friends were having babies and celebrating by taking them home, loving on them, and enjoying those first weeks of being a new mom. I yearned and longed for normality.

And guess where that normality came from? Those mounds on my chest that had been the source of so many years of mental struggle. With engorgement, my chest swelled to gargantuan proportions. They did the job the good Lord intended them to do, and I began producing milk like I grazed in a pasture. When my lactating began with the help of a pump, I remember the thrill of seeing those tiny drops of liquid emerge. A few days after holding my daughter for the first time, I was given the green light to attempt breastfeeding. I sat there in that NICU with machines buzzing and beeping, surrounded by a medical team as she latched on and began sucking with all her might. And there was my normalcy—praise Jesus!

I nursed my daughter throughout her infancy and in the same month that I weaned her, I became pregnant with my son. By the time I had emerged from the shower that Tuesday afternoon, I had been nursing my son for 10 months. After all of that use, those two lovely blobs had become…not so lovely. Have you ever put a tennis ball in a pair of pantyhose and swung it around your head? Well, now you know what I look like naked.

After the initial shock of seeing my deflated boobs wore off, I took some time and examined myself in the mirror. Saggy boobs, paunchy stomach, C-section scar, hips a little wider than they use to be: I bore all the marks of motherhood, the beautiful marks of motherhood. I know what this worn body is capable of and the life it created and sustained. I know the little smiles that look up at me came from those stretches, scars, and marks. I can look at my body and know the glorious creation it is, and it’s perfect just as it is.

This post was written by Brooke, and originally shared on ACM in May 2015.