Is surgery the only option for the drained norks?

[Flamesparrow]

Only fed DD for 12 weeks (well, I fed her after that... she needs food every 2 seconds or she wilts in a corner - or so she would have me believe), anyway - they went a bit flurped, went back on the pill, plumped up... kept plumpin...

3-4 cup sizes later, then pregnancy with DS... get up to an F/G.

Stopped feeding from one side and it is down to an E, and I think we're pretty much at the end with the other side now too (nearly 12 months and it seems to be reaching a natural end)...

I'm liking the shrinking aspect of it - the E is a much nicer size than the F/G (although it looks tiny to me!), but they look like the life has been sucked out of them.

They will probably end up a DD/E, but only when folded oragami style into a bra.

Is surgery the only way to improve them or can I do anything with exercise and muscles?

I've lost so much weight - finally like how I look, and then I take off my bra and it goes wrong

oh poor lamb

your breasts have nurtured life ffs

why do we prefer pointy plastic breasts to useful ones?

love your breasts as well as you. they did something great. does your dh/dp still like them?

cos mine look like sad little flaps to me but dh never complains if they come out

in 10 years time you'll be going 'my breasts were much nicer in 2007 than they are now, why didn't I enjoy them'?

move on and be happy

I know what you're saying is right, but I am just I have never had a figure I have been proud of... mid teens I hid, so have no idea what it was like, late teens I had small norks and was still hiding a lot, by the time the norks grew I had put on a lot of weight, so again, didn't appreciate what I had and didn't like what I saw...

I'm guessing reading that its more an issue of my self esteem than anything else

Yup, DH doesn't care how they are.

I'd give it a couple of years - mine have improved a bit and don't look quite as drained now as they did when I first stopped feeding, so maybe get yourself some luxurious bust cream, keep massaging it in regularly, and give it a bit of time before you despair.

How long have you noyt been feeding for? they might plump back up a bit?

Been not feeding for only a few weeks.

I think I'm panicking because they plumped up before after going back on the pill (which I'm not doing this time)... but I have no real way to know if they would have done it anyway

Give it a while. Pregnancy does change the composition of your breasts - fat migrates and is replaced with milk-making equipment (!) and after you finish feeding, it takes a while for the fat to return. Also remember you are older than when you started all this having babies malarky so that will have an effect too. If you really don't like how you look a year or two after you've finished feeding your last baby (if you are certain it is your last one) then you might be happier after surgery, but remember surgery is not absolutely risk free and you might not particularly like the results.

I think it is about your self esteem

whether they 'plump back' or not - why spend time waiting and wondering?

Buy a couple of nice bras for the new, slightly smaller norks

And walk around thinking that you're gorgeous

I looked at some photos this weekend of me when I had just had dd. I remember thinking they were terrible photos

But they're not. I looked very pretty. I look older now and less pretty and I couldn't believe that I was whining about how these pictures looked when i looked actually very good

we need to enjoy ourselves as we are cos there's no going back

Oh Aloha - def no surgery whatever - was really a case of am I stuck with em The only surgery I have ever said I would consider is getting them shrunk if they stay huge.

Capp... off to shops today, will try and get a nice (but cheap) bra.

Bloody hindsight . I only realise now that I had fabulous norks when I was in my teens/twenties. All I knew was that they were too big for a wonderbra so didn't look the way that magazines were telling me they should look.

When I was pregnany and dh got all excited about the increased norkage I got all voice-of-doomy telling him to enjoy because they'd never look this good again. He doesn't care but I know I will and it hasn't even happened ffs (mind you, nursing bra & soaked breast pads permanently in situ isn't such a sexy look atm).

I really feel that plastic surgery is giving us a twisted idea of how breasts should look and I do wonder, as it becomes cheaper and more common will we feel increased pressure to go under the knife to feel "normal"?

Agree with Aloha - Flamesparrow. It takes 1-2 years for your breasts to replace milk making tissue with fatty tissue. I have B/F 4 children as you know and initially when I stopped feeding they were empty and looked like 'spaniel's lugs' (ears) - They filled back up again and they are pretty good looking IMO

It does take time for norks to readjust after bf. Mine were like empty pillows after DD, but now they are fairly plumptious & firm again. Even though you can't restructure the actual breast tissue itself through exercise, I do think that you can give boobs a bit of a lift by ensure that your underlying pectorals are in decent shape.

Thanks everyone You've given me hope for the future (both in terms of some slight improvement, and also me working on self esteem)