My Chin Implant (Augmentation) Story

I wish I had a picture to show just how bad my chin was before, but I NEVER took pictures where I wasn't facing a camera.  If I saw a camera in a crowd of people, I would look directly at it and smile.  It didn't matter who had the camera, I wasn't going to have a profile picture taken if at all possible.

I found this picture of me on Facebook and asked for it to be removed because I hate how my chin looks.

I blame a fall in Kindergarten (a pretty bad one, broke the bone that holds your top teeth together, shoved my jaw backward, flattened my front teeth to the top of my mouth...all requiring surgery) and my mom says it's genetics...either way, I grew up have a very weak, almost non-existent chin.  When all my girlfriends complained about wanting new boobs, I could never relate to that.  I've got more than my fair share, but how I dreamed about having a chin.  I'm sure it seems like a very petty thing to wish for, and I agree it is, but we all have that one thing about ourselves we'd like to change...and this was mine.  At seventeen I paid for my own braces.  That was the first time I saw what I could look like had my chin been fixed.  The orthodontist showed what my profile would look like if he had his way...which was breaking my jaw to realign them and then straightening my teeth.  Although my parents weren't paying (another vanity issue of wanting/needing braces), my mom quickly told him "no way" after she found out how much it would cost.  Instead I had top teeth removed (which changed the shape of my face and made the lower fourth even more weak) and pulled them all back to match my bottom teeth.

Me hiding my chin in pictures.

My mom thought I was vain when I mentioned to her that I might get a chin implant.  After her reaction I told no one except the hubby.  My hubby went with me to the pre-op appointments and couldn't have been more supportive.  I had to take a week off work for it (luckily it snowed a lot and I didn't have to miss more than four days).  The surgery placed a medium sized implant in my chin and my doctor also did liposuction to my chin and tied back muscles. It would have been great had the surgery went great the first time.

It was an very painful experience.  I knew it would hurt, but I completely underestimated how badly.  My doctor had accidentally burned through my skin with his cauterizer and a muscles was stuck under the implant.  I told him several times in post-operative appointments that things were just not right and he agreed, but we decided to see how my body dealt with it rather than going through surgery again.  Of course, three months after the surgery was my wedding date.  I thought I'd have plenty of time to heal and the burn mark was still very apparent, but I did have a chin.  :)

In the weeks that passed after the surgery, I looked like a freak!!!  This is what my students saw when I got back to work:

That's after ten days of healing.  The burn on the left is from the inside of my neck all the way through the outside.  The rest is crazy bruising and marks from the liposuction.  The swelling on my right side is what always concerned me...and why I had to have surgery again.

But, I HAD A CHIN.  I couldn't raise my head all the way because of the muscle issue, it was swollen for a long time and I had no feeling in the lower quarter of my face, but I had a chin!!!

This is the first "non posed" picture I had seen of myself post-surgery.

After a year, things still were not great on my right side.  My doctor said a muscle had twisted and he would need to go back in and smooth it out.  I was expecting similar, painful, results as the previous surgery so I took a week off work, but it wasn't bad AT ALL.  I had surgery on a Thursday and called my sub on Friday telling her I'd be back on Monday.  I hate missing work and I was well enough to teach, as long as I took some Tylenol midway through the day.

Three years post the first surgery, I'm still not 100% happy with my results, but the scar on my neck has faded, the one from the implant incision is still pretty bold, but it's better than the alternative, which was no chin.  I still see profile pictures of myself now and cringe because I don't have a prominent chin, but if I wasn't complaining about that, I'd find something else to complain about.  The right side still isn't "right", but I'm living with it.  It's only times when I see pictures like the one below that I feel the vanity creeping back up because I paid for perfection, but then I realize, I have to accept that nothing is perfect.

Ok, maybe it's not just the chin.  This is a bad picture of me in general.  

My first husband could never understand why I hated my chin so much and agreed with my mom that I was vain to complain about it.  And, when you consider many people are dying from terrible diseases, yes, it is definitely vain of me to worry about my chin.  But, I had worked myself into a complex and to some degree I still drag it with me.  

I still smile at every camera I see, I still feel like my chin is weak, but in the end, none of that matters.  I'm happy, healthy, my kids are healthy, and life is good. :)  

~Beth

About Beth

Where do I begin, my journey into adolescence or adulthood...or motherhood?  

I am one of five children...ok, four a half, my dad had two children about a year apart with different women, and then had me less than a year after that.  I blame peace, love, and the 70's.  They just celebrated their 35th anniversary.  I am the only girl and I think being raised with all boys has made me less tolerant of women, especially weak and weepy women.  I do not cry...pretty much ever, except if you show me videos of people with cancer (I lost my Grammy almost a year ago to that terrible disease) or soldiers coming home.  That'll get me.  Also, pride in my children.  But, I'm not the type to get my feelings hurt and cry.  Not going to happen.

My brothers:

I married my high school sweetheart at seventeen a month before I graduated; no I wasn't pregnant.  My parents found out we had been doing things many seventeen year old's do and gave me an ultimatum...get married or break up.  We divorced ten years and two children later.  I have my ten year old, affectionately called my Monster and then I have my Angel Baby, who is eight.  I had, as I had done at seventeen, found physical pleasure in a place I shouldn't have and had a decision to make.  Stay in a marriage I was clearly unhappy in (and had made that clear about a year before my two weeks of stupidity...I didn't wear a wedding ring and was terribly unkind) or decide that living with just my boys and I was enough for me.  I chose the latter.  Forty-seven days later, I was divorced.  We agreed on joint custody, because although I didn't want to live with him, my children love and need their dad, and asked for no child support, didn't take the house, and tried to do everything I could to make sure my ex's life wasn't destroyed because he still had my boys to help me raise into amazing men.  He remarried a very nice woman less than a year later.  Did I mention I'm from a very, very very small town...so everyone knew, I got letters from people telling me how horrible I was, how ashamed of me my children would be, and I would die alone addicted to tanning beds and beauty parlors.  Nothing anyone could have said to me would have made me feel as terrible as I felt without their condemnation.  I was ashamed of my actions.  Luckily, six years later, my kids still love me and I have forgiven myself.  It was a long road.  My bosses, I'm a high school teacher, told me I would destroy my children and it would be hard for my students to "look up to me" because I was divorced.  I soon left that district, by choice, and work in a nearby town...and I LOVE IT.  :)

My ex came from a divorced family that was unable to keep him out of the conflict and fortunately, but unfortunately, he learned, first hand, that's not what he wanted for his children.  For that I am truly thankful.  He accepted early on that his actions contributed to our divorce and willingly admits to 50% of the blame.  We do not always agree nor see eye to eye, but we always put the boys first.  ALWAYS.  Sometimes I disagree with how he does things or his priorities, as I know he does mine also, but in the long run, it's about our boys and them being happy.  

I dated a few men off and on for about a year and a half after my divorce, but nothing serious.  I was perfectly content to just live my life with my boys and I.  We are quite a team.  They are my world and I didn't need anything else.  But, then my one indiscretion decided he could no longer live in a love-less, affair ridden marriage and moved out.  He came to me as a friend, and I told him to go back, work on his marriage, and it wasn't as easy as it appeared.  He had a baby at home and a two year old...he told me I didn't understand how much he didn't see his wife as a wife, but as a roommate instead and there were no loving feelings for her.  He said he had tried to leave in the past, but she made him feel guilty and would cry, so he stayed, but nothing changed.  Eventually she started dating and I told him he should too.  He should see what all was out there.  But, he only had eyes for me.  I'm not kidding when I say that was a terrible choice for him.  It has been constant conflict for the last five years for that decision.  We married two years after we started dating.

So, my life went from a traditional family of four, to a family of three, to a blended family of six.  There is the hubby, Little Man, and Curly added to the mix.  I'm sure many stories will be told relating to Little Man and Curly on my part of the blog, because they have another person who isn't in my home, but definitely in control of my life who hasn't been able to love her kids more than she hates us.  It's a never ending battle in court, outside of court, and we are always in a state of stress.  It's absolutely miserable.  Don't get me wrong, I love my life and I love ALL my kids, but I've never witness darkness in my life as I do now, almost daily.  That'll probably be written about often also.  

It seems like nowadays, everyone has a blog.  Most are happy and cheery, some are drama filled, and some are plain depressing.  This blog will be all over the place.  My best girlfriend and I decided maybe it would be fun to have two people posting to the same blog about REAL stuff.  Let's see how this goes....