First Reconstruction Bra

Since my mom bought my first training bra back around middle school, it seemed only natural for her to want to buy my first bra of reconstruction.

I've been going through reconstruction while also going through chemo. Roughly every 10-14 days I go in to the reconstruction surgeon for am injection of fluids into my chest. My "chest" means my sparred skin, pectoralis muscle, then balloon behind this muscle they call a spacer. The spacer has a valve on it which a needle with 50 cc of saline solution penetrates in order to expand my pectoralis. The end "look" is a boob.

It's surreal. It looks like a boob -- but I don't feel the boob. In fact it's like this foreign mold on my chest that doesnt bounce like regular breasts. But it's neat in that I can have something like this. I have boobs. The balloon ridges can be seen now which is a good reason to wear a bra. I may have also found my boob size of choice (with reconstruction you keep going until you are happy with a size. You go inline more time after this choice size so that the surgeon can chisel out skin for the actual implant. The balloon gets swapped for the implant at a future surgery which must wait 6 weeks after chemo end for healing purposes.)

Since my mom was in need of a new size bra and I was in need of my first reconstruction bra we went shopping together. It was fun, relaxed. It was a bonding moment and a moment of getting something pretty. As someone who hasn't done this in years since jog bras have been my choice of comfort, it was quite the experience in seeing the technology changes over the years. I went in initially trying to find out what size I am -- but this was kind of challenging since everything had pretty substantial inserts. A 34A was really not a 34A with half the bra filled with a pillow of sorts. It took a while to find a bra without the pillow. When I finally tried on pillowless bras, I then had to look inside the cup to see if my "boob" filled it up since I can't feel anything. I felt middle school ish with my attempts of finding a bra -- but it really was heartwarming and a great experience to find things that fit and feel good and look good! A transformation of sorts. Very similar memory to my first "training bra" -- and having my mom there was pretty special.