Hi N.,
If your self esteem is affected, then by all means get it done. This is going to sound crazy to some parents, but I had my daughters done at age 15. Normally I would have said that is nuts, forget it. If she had just been wanting bigger breasts at that age, the answer would have been an 'absolute NO'. But there was another issue with her. One of her breasts didn't develop at all. One was a large size C, almost D. I had never heard of that before but since then have heard of quite a few girls like that. I saw this child go thru torment over this, stuffing one side of her bra, not wanting to wear a swimsuit without a t-shirt over it, afraid to go swimming, afraid her stuffing would come out, and so on. She got so she wouldn't go out and do anything with friends, wore baggy shirts all the time, wanted to stay in her room for the most part. Finally her pediatrician suggested augmentation. I was completely against it at that age, but by the time we got home, I had studied it thru and saw where it could help her self esteem and she wouldn't be embarrassed anymore. I too thought of it like this, if my child had a heart defect, I would want it fixed if it could be, or any kind of defect, and this was a defect. So we had it done, after much investigating. I even had the dr background check and stuff done. She didn't suffer much pain at all, only for a couple of days getting up and down out of bed. Came thru it all like a breeze, but I also think it was a lot of attitude that helped, she wanted that so bad. They placed the implant under her muscle, assured me she could breast feed if she ever chose to, and they also worked on the other one. He cut it down some, placed a small one in the bottom of it under the muscle also to lift it up to match the other one, both were a size C when all was done and over with. At the time they looked wonderful, and she was a complete different person. She came out of her shell, and is so outgoing it is unbelievable now. I'm so glad we did it. Now though it has been almost 6 yrs and she is complaining about her 'real' one not looking right and it comes out of her bra when she lays down. The dr warned us as the years went on she might have to have it done again, because no matter what he did then, gravity would still pull the real one down where as the 'fake' one would always stay firm and pert. That is happening now, plus she says the 'nipple' is not in the right place now (he completely removed it and put it back on when he cut that one down to size). So she is planning on saving her own money to have it done again as soon as she can. It cost us right at 6500.00 for the whole surgery, hospital expenses and all. Which all that had to be paid up front before the surgery was done. I hate to see her go to that expense again, and the way I understand it, most times it always has to be re-done at some point in time. He gave us approx. 10 yrs but said it could be sooner, which it has turned out that way. But I would still do it again for her, to have seen the difference it made in her overnight. We were talked about like dogs when the word got out, even the nurses in the recovery room treated us with disdain until we told them she had not developed one breast, so it is not really acceptable to most of society even to this day of technology we have, I guess especially for a teenager, but like I said, I would do it again in a heart beat if I had to for her. If it makes you feel better about yourself, go for it, you should do fine! Just be prepared that it might have to be repeated in years to come, which I'm sure if you have a good dr. he will explain that to you when you have your consultation. Go for it and good luck!
