"....but you look fine the way you are"

..in someone else's opinion.

We've always joked that my sister and I got my father's chest and my mother's ass. Being a traditional European family, a rounded and voluptuous shape was the norm. My mother, along with her 4 sisters all were very well built and buxom. My female cousins were ample and going through junior high and high school, I can remember in 8th grade, waaaay back in 1980, one girl being called 'the box' because her teen bra, which must have come from the full figure section at Sears, was quite shall we say... um, formed.

Growing up, it really wasn't a big deal about our breast size. Happy I suppose, with my A-B cup. I always opted for that padded cushy type of bra that would give a little more oomph to the profile. It wasn't until I had my first baby in 1993 at age 27, that I could actually see what I'd been missing.

Who knew!

I didn't breastfeed and after the milk came in, I remember feeling quite sexy with the new, albeit short-lived, curvy figure. I liked the look (hated the engorged feel) but never forgot that image of myself filled out.

After the baby, I stepped up my then fashionable aerobicizing routine and started to learn about weight training. Within a few months, I began to transform my soft look with a defined and toned body. As my body began to get lean, my boobs began to disappear.

Small, perky. A's.

woo hoo.

Though they fit my frame, I'd always hoped my boobs were fuller. I was trying to achieve symmetry with fitness and no matter how hard I worked, my chest would remain its small self. Of course, we know, breast size isn't going to increase by exercising. It just isn't controlled that way. Most of us have been there. Staring at the mirror at whatever age for whatever reason wishing we could change that "one thing" that wasn't in 'balance' with the rest of our body.

Notice, I didn't say "perfect."

By the time I reached my early 30s, I wanted s-e-x-y breasts. This was 'my' standard of sexy. Not my then-husband's idea. He was happy the way I was. (So wasn't everyone else, ad nauseam). I would plant the seed of getting implants on occasion, to family or friends as much as "in passing" permits. I began to take notice of women with great figures at the gym. And though I was achieving my lean look, so were they -- but with nice shapely breasts....

"Could that be me?" I'd ask myself.

And so, the journey begins.