Dear Boobies: I miss you, please come back

“GO Crater!!!!!” my friends yelled from the grandstands.  I’m sure the judges thought they were nuts.  I tuned them out and kept jumping (well, my pony did the actual jumping).  I can’t remember how long I had that nickname, but it was a long time.  It didn’t really bother me, I thought it was funny.  After all, it was true.  Well, ok, I didn’t have craters instead of boobs.  I just didn’t have any boobs.

My friend gave me an “Itty Bitty Titty Club” card once.  I still remember the silly poem on the back:

Itty Bitty soft and pretty, little breasts make better chests.  I carried that little card around in my wallet for years.

But then I came to Australia.  I don’t know if there are steroids or growth hormones or something in the chicken here, but suddenly, I had boobs.  I left an A, came back a C.  Sure, I’d put on a bit of weight while here.  I suppose that’s what happens when you were so fussy that you lived off of cheese pizza, macaroni and cheese and turkey hot dogs. Then you pull the stick of out your bum and start trying new things and realise hey, it’s not too bad.  Plus, this country has Tim Tams.  And cheesy nuggets, and my host mum Linda’s chef class cooking.  I lost my Australia pudge, but lucky for me, my boobs stayed.  I still remember my very first C-cup bra.  White with polka dots and convertible straps.

When I got pregnant, my boobs got even bigger.  Or maybe they just got sore, I don’t know.  They definitely got even bigger when I started breastfeeding.  Especially if Hannah didn’t wake overnight and I woke up in a puddle of milk and they were rock hard.

But now, breastfeeding is over, I’m not pregnant, and the chicken just doesn’t seem to be doing it’s job.  I suppose I thought they’d just go back to their pre-pregnancy size.  That seemed logical.  But no, that was not to be.  Instead, when I wear my bra, no longer is it filled by my boobies.  Now, fabric hangs down below my boobs, with nothing to hold it up, nothing to keep it in place.  I move my arm and my bra pretty much goes up to my neck.  I hunch a little bit and the straps fall down to my elbows.

“What’s going on, your bra is way too big for you?”  Aaron said to me the other day.  That was the straw that broke the camels back.  I was kind of hoping my MIA boobies would suddenly run back to me, happy and excited from their vacation, ecstatic about being reunited with me.

“My boobies shrank,” I said with a sad look on my face.

“Why don’t you get some new bras?”  Hm…good idea.

So that’s what I did today.  I went bra shopping.  I didn’t trust myself to figure out my new, smaller, sadder size.  I went to Bras ‘n things and got fitted.  I am now (sigh, gasp, sad face) an 8B.  Or (because that is nearly impossible to find) I could also go for the 10A.  Ten A?????????!!!!!!!!!!??????  I thought maybe a 10B, only 1 size smaller, that wouldn’t be so bad, but TWO SIZES SMALLER??!  What happens when I have another baby?  Will I turn into an 8AAA?  And then what if I have 2 more babies, or twins?  Then I really will be Crater.

I didn’t mind not having boobs.  But then I got some, and I really liked them.  And now I would really like them back.  They didn’t even stick around for 10 years.  😦

Oh, and I tried on a 10A in the store, and it pains me to say this, but it was a little big. Not around, but in the cup.  That’s just sad.  At least an 8B sounds better (we’ll just pretend the the actual cup size isn’t actually smaller than a 10A.  I know, bra sizes are confusing.).  Before today, I didn’t even know they made size 8 bras.  Sigh….

my first mammogram

Time since birth: 4 weeks 1 day
Total weight loss: 9.9kgs (21.8lbs)
Total weight loss this week (well, for the last 2 weeks): 2.9kg (6.4lbs)

Yay, I can finally fit my bum into a pair of my pre-pregnancy jeans. It’s so not the point that I can barley button them, they give me a muffin top, and they are too uncomfortably tight to actually wear anywhere. I did borrow a pair of size 10 (aussie size 10 that is, don’t get too scared my american friends!) pair of jeans so I don’t have to always wear the one pair of pants that I own that actually fit me (and they aren’t even jeans).

A good thing about being pregnant is that you don’t get your period. Unfortunately, what people fail to mention is the bleeding after birth (called lochia). It’s like you have to make up for all of those months of not bleeding. Some people are lucky and only bleed for 2 weeks. Me, not so lucky, I’m still bleeding. Of course, it’s a lot lighter then right after birth when I got it all over the hospital bed in my sleep (I’m sure they get that a lot), but it’s still annoying.

I had my boob ultrasound last week. It took a while as I have so many lumps, and you are laying down, so I pretty much fell asleep. I did actually drift off a few times. She understood that I am a new mom, and we don’t get as much sleep as before, so she was very understanding. She told me my big lump is now 4cm long, 4 times bigger than it was last year, and filled with fluid. They don’t think it’s anything sinister, but recommended further investigation.

Further investigation lead me to my first mammogram. I felt very out of place in the waiting room, amongst all the old ladies, and even more so as I also had a crying baby with me. Hannah couldn’t come in with me because of the x-rays, so all the ladies who worked there fought over who got to watch her. Lucky she’s cute, or I might have had to leave her screaming in her pram outside the door as no one would have wanted to watch her. I never tire of people telling me how cute she is.

I have been told that a mammogram is so painful you almost pass out, so I was quite nervous about the whole thing. Also, I wasn’t too crazy about the thought of having my boobs pancaked.

First, you take your top off and bear all to the mammogram technician (who, lucky for me, was a woman). Next, place boob (with help of woman) on flat plate thing and wait for top plate thing to come down and pancake boob. Then, watch as your milk sprays all over the mammogram machine and narrowly misses the technician. How embarrassing…. Repeat with other boob. Next, the flat boob squisher plate turns sideways. Slot your boob for squishing from the side this time, watch milk go everywhere, including dripping all over self this time, and repeat with other boob. It didn’t actually hurt that much, and was over quite quickly. I haven’t gone back to the doctor yet to get my results, so tune in next week to find out.

Little Hannah also made a trip to the hospital this week for her appointment with the cardiologist. What an expensive week (cardiologist $400, mammogram $200). She still sports a hole in her heart between two ventricles, and it is unlikely to close. Luckily though, it is not causing her any problems and shouldn’t in the future. We do have to keep an eye on it throughout her life and we have to go back in 8 weeks (when her systems are done making the womb to world transition) to make sure all is well.

Saturday we took Hannah for her first long car trip to Penrith. We thought she’d love it as she loves the movement of the car, but she did a poo right after we left and then cried the whole ride. Can’t say that I’d like to sit in poo either. On the way home she slept the whole time and then continued to sleep for another 3 hours before waking up for a feed. She doesn’t poop at night so we didn’t have that problem on the way home.