Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

by Carla Fong
? 2001 by Carla Fong. All Rights Reserved.

Ever since I was very small, I?ve been fascinated with women?s clothing. I?m a crossdresser?but you already knew that. I?ve been in the closet since my early teens, and finally, about five years ago, got the gumption to go out in public.
After conquering the heebie-jeebies and the willies, going out in public dressed as a woman was and is a lot of fun! The only problem? The more I did it, the more I wanted to do it. It was a vicious circle indeed?but oh, what fun!

But we?re never satisfied. There?s always something more we want to do: bigger boat, newer car, lower golf score. It?s different for each individual, but we all have something.

For me, ?Crossdresser?s Nirvana? that had the greatest appeal...was cleavage! OK, I confess. Ever since I was small, I?ve been fascinated by breasts. At a wild guess, it?s a fascination shared by perhaps 80% of the male population. Another wild guess is it?s a fascination shared by approximately 126% of crossdressers. Of course, that?s only a scientific approximation.

Now that my desire was identified, how to proceed? There are a number of techniques and devices we can use to simulate a bosom. Mostly, they won?t stand up to scrutiny if visible skin is a requirement. About the best you can hope for in getting cleavage is duct-taping your flesh into a fold and augmenting it with a breast form or something. The adhesive ?attachable? forms also produce the illusion of cleavage, but not really well.

I was left with three possibilities: do nothing, take hormones, or have breast augmentation surgery. I didn?t feel hormones were appropriate for me?I?m a crossdresser, not a transsexual. I may be a lesbian trapped in a body with male plumbing, but it?s comfortable for me. Doing nothing (and daydreaming about how things could be different) was the easy option, but there was still that nagging desire to look right in that little black dress. I wanted cleavage. The best option, I decided, was surgery.

The way Carla usually does things, is to act and damn the consequences. But this was perhaps the most unusual thing I?ve ever contemplated, and I took a different tack. First was the research. Here?s where modern technology takes on the heavy lifting. There?s a ton of data on the Internet, and plenty about what I was planning, known technically as breast augmentation and colloquially as getting a boob job.

Searching the Internet for information on breast augmentation was amazingly fruitful. There?s a great site at <http//www.implantinfo.com>. I recommend it. Most of my technical questions were answered there. There was also the infamous article in Maxim magazine (July 1998) about the Las Vegas gambler who got breasts on a bet for 100 large. Hey, I?d do it for a lot less than a hundred grand!

The really important questions were of a more personal nature. How could a relatively average guy survive the daily tests of modern life whilst sporting a chest of female proportion? I?d thought about this for a long time prior, and figured the best way would be to try something temporary to test the waters. I got serious in November of 1998. One fine fall day, full of fear and trepidation, I tried wearing my smaller breast prostheses while in male mode.

What a strange sense of fear and awe as I stepped out into a guy world with my 36Bs, in broad daylight, here in my hometown, for the very first time! The most clinical description of my personal head space was scared s**tless. Of course, I did my best to camouflage my silicone protuberances under a rather baggy shirt, but I knew they were there! I suppose a casual observer wouldn?t have noticed much difference. ?Just a guy wearing a baggy flannel shirt.? It?s different when you?re inside the shirt and sure everyone around you is staring at your chest, because it?s certainly the most important thing on your mind.

The first hour seemed like a week. Everyone was fixated on my chest. Everywhere I went, I heard loud, boisterous laughter from behind me. Groups of small children ran after me, throwing small stones and heckling me at every turn. Several small women wearing sensible shoes and brandishing religious tracts in one hand and a copy of The National Enquirer in the other chased after me, chanting a mantra of ?Pervert! Pervert!? It was horrible! It was awful! It was terrible! It was completely imaginary!

Actually nothing happened! Nada. Zip. Zero. The demons inside my head got a great workout, but as far as the real world was concerned, it was business as usual.

By hour two, my rapid pulse and copious sweating had diminished to a feeling of utter terror. At noon, I managed to walk from my car into my office and sit at my desk for a few moments, gauging the reactions of my co-workers. Nothing. Hmmm . . .

By the end of that first fateful day, the total reaction had been a big goose-egg. Life went on all around me as if nothing had happened. Lots of turmoil between my own ears, but the rest of the world seemed blithely oblivious. It was a bit of a letdown actually, finding I?m not the center of the known universe.

So that was that, a fitful start into bosomness. Day two was a bit less stressful than day one, and day three a bit less again. After a month of daily enhancement and public scrutiny, life was pretty ordinary, just a bit lumpier. All the while, I knew deep inside that if any of this became a problem I could just stop wearing the forms. I admit I was still doing what I could to cover my synthetic assets by wearing loose clothing and crossing my arms a lot, but as I slowly became accustomed to the twins and became comfortable with my new look, I started to relax. And the strangest thing?I found I enjoyed having breasts!

Not wanting to mislead you, I have to be frank for a moment. Of course other people noticed the change in my appearance. Some people did stare. Undoubtedly there was discussion of my apparent remodeling behind my back. People asked my significant others, co-workers and business associates asked what the hell Carl(a) was doing. But after a few months, the issue just seemed to disappear. The chatterboxes moved on to the next bit of juicy gossip, and my life went on.

As I grew more comfortable with my new look, I spent less time trying to hide it from others. When summer came and bulky flannel shirts weren?t appropriate attire, I did change to somewhat thinner and less obscuring clothing. Still the earth didn?t open under my feet and swallow me into a sulphurous pit. What a relief! By November of 1999 my artificially revised physique was pretty much a given in my small town. It was time to fish or cut bait.

But first, a quick time-out. Over the year I spent wearing breast forms, I discovered something about disconcerting about silicone breast forms. They wear out! If you wear your forms 24/7, the outer shell eventually splits and a greasy silicone mess leaks out. When this happened at five months, I thought it was just a fluke and replaced the smaller set with my favorite, larger pair. Carl(a) was now a 36C?and life went on in guy mode pretty much as usual. I did stop wearing the forms while sleeping, as I thought this was shortening their life.

When I embarked on the journey, I decided to try a year with prosthetic breasts before doing anything permanent. I figured that would give me time to acclimate to the situation. I could stop anytime and revert to being a flat-chested guy. At the same time, I would be saving my pennies to finance the surgery if I really decided to do it. The plan was: by the time I had the cash in hand I would know if I really wanted to travel down this road. If I didn?t, I?d have a nice nest-egg to invest in a new milling machine or welder for the workshop.

By November of 1999 I had decided that being a guy with boobs was not only tolerable, but a lot of fun. By this time, the worst was over. So far as my relationship to the outside world was concerned, my attitude was positive and I was looking forward to having cleavage for those special times in girl mode. My savings plan had resulted in enough to pay for the expected surgery. All systems were go. It was time for the next step.

First on the menu was selecting a surgeon. That was easy. In nearby Portland, Oregon was one of the leading SRS surgeons. Who would be better to put boobs on a guy than someone who?s done hundreds already? I made the call and scheduled an appointment for a consultation. Well, almost. When I called and told the scheduler what I wanted, she said ?Fine. Have you got a letter from your psychologist?? ?Ummm, no. I don?t want a sex change, just breasts.? ?Well, we still need a letter.?

Hmmm?an unexpected hurdle. I asked if the doctor?s office could recommend a therapist, and they gave me a couple of names. One was near my workplace, so I made an appointment.
The psychologist and I had a nice chat. She thought my request was a bit odd, but I was certainly not mentally unbalanced. So, a letter to the surgeon would be forthcoming. Before I left her office (and after she had already evaluated me) I got to do a gender personality profile test evaluation thingie. The results: generally feminine. What a shock! That was fun!

With the promise of a letter forthcoming, I called Doctor T?s office and made an appointment for a surgical consult. One small step for man, one giant step for Carl(a).

The consultation at Dr. T?s office was uneventful. After filling out the forms and waiting around a bit, I was interviewed by his assistant. She told me, ?We don?t do breast augmentation on males unless they?re transsexual.? Well, it would have been nice to find this out when I first called and asked specifically about getting augmentation, rather than running around finding psychologists and jumping through hoops. She did waive the fee for the consultation, since I didn?t see the doctor. Fair enough, but I decided to see him anyway. Might as well chat with the top banana if you?re already in the tree.

Dr. T explained that because of the Benjamin Standards he wasn?t willing to do anything that might adversely affect his medical practice. Although he told me breast augmentation was a common surgical procedure and entirely reversible, it wasn?t something he was comfortable doing other than anyone other than an SRS-track patient.

The visit wasn?t a total loss, as I asked for and received a referral to another surgeon in the area. I paid for the consult and headed out the door.

A couple of days later I got up nerve to make the next phone call. You know how it goes. Just too busy to make a doctor?s appointment. Yadda yadda yadda. I was a bit apprehensive about this one, as it would certainly be an unusual request for a garden-variety plastic surgeon to do a breast augmentation on a male. Or so I thought. The cheerful person who answered the phone listened to my request and said ?Well, I?ll have to check with the doctor and see if he?s willing to do it. Hang on!? She came back on the line about a minute later and said, ?When would you like an appointment?? Sheesh! This is too easy!

The consultation was set two weeks out, in mid-December, 1999. During that time, my second set of forms (the 36Cs) gave up the ghost?or the silicone. Whatever. A quick trip to Mary Catherine?s scored me a nice pair of used forms that were larger than any I had ever tried before. I became a 36C+ or 36D, depending on the brassiere manufacturer. And life went on pretty normally.

From my research on the internet, I knew that breast implants are sized by their volume in cubic centimeters. Since I was expecting to leave the world of external prostheses and move inside, I got busy determining the size of the forms I was using to get an idea of what I wanted as far as implant size. The external forms I started with (the 36Bs) were about 400 cc, the C forms were 450 cc and the D?s were 500 cc. These should be useful numbers for the consult, I thought.

My consultation appointment day neared, and I called the office to confirm it. I was halfway hoping some external force would intercede to postpone the inevitable. You know what I mean?calling the dentist?s office to see if he had a sudden change of heart about doing your root canal or had been abducted by space aliens and couldn?t see you this year or something like that. Nope. We were set for the consultation, as advertised?although an interesting thing did happen during that phone call. The cheerful woman I had spoken with the first time I called answered the phone again this time, and after confirming the appointment told me that another woman who worked in the office had gone to high school with a ?Carl LaFong.? Could I be the same person?

Whoof! Yikes! Eeek! Busted! What a strange sensation. I had expected this medical adventure to be a bit more anonymous than that. In my moment of vulnerability, a hand was reaching out from my dark past. Weird, indeed. We determined that, yes indeed, I was one and the same. To my great credit or incredible stupidity, I didn?t cancel the appointment and book passage on a slow boat to Singapore.

The day of the consultation dawned. I drove to the surgeon?s office and met Marilyn, the cheerful office manager, and Kris, the girl from my pubescent past. Oh, my. In high school, she was gorgeous. I worshipped her from afar. Very afar. Nerds didn?t court the cheerleaders. This nerd didn?t court anyone, but that?s a separate issue. She was still gorgeous, breathtakingly so. I could feel my brain disengaging from active control of major muscle groups. The mouth and lips were the first to go. Babbling and gibberish became my mother tongues. Just being able to formulate relatively coherent sentences while Kris was in the vicinity was a major accomplishment, to which I owe everything to my Dale Carnegie training.

After small talk with the office staff, I was ushered into the doctor?s study. He looked me over in that trademarked doctorly way and asked me what I wanted. I explained my situation, and he queried me about perhaps actually wanting pectoral implants, not breast implants. Seems it?s more common for men to want bigger pecs, not bigger breasts. Hmmm. Hadn?t occurred to me that there was another way to get big pecs other than exercise... We cleared that up and then chatted about crossdressing and cleavage. He knew nothing about crossdressing but was a world authority on cleavage. This guy knew his stuff, and stuffing.

?Gotta have enough skin to stretch over the implants,? is the motto of breast augmentation. Makes sense. Before even unbuttoning my shirt in the examination room, I knew skin was my issue. Natal females apparently are more endowed with available skin that are males, so it?s easier to work on them. Or they?re stretchier. Or something. When the doctor came in and had a look and a squeeze and a pinch and whatever else, he said ?Hmmm... looks like this could work.? He estimated he could fit 500 cc implants into the available space, using an incision under the breast at the crease, which wasn?t there in guy mode but would be after placing the implants.

He made a final evaluation of my mental state. ?Are you sure you want to do this?? After receiving an affirmative reply, the consult was over. The results: 425 cc saline implants, overfilled as necessary, crease incision, and local anesthetic, with the procedure done in his office surgical suite.

I wandered back to the reception area. The cheerful Ms. Marilyn said ?Well, when is good for you?? I don?t know I was really ready to make that appointment, but what the heck. We set a tentative date for March 1, 2000. I collected what was left of my wits and headed out the door.

I now had two-and-a-half months to give the operation my full consideration. I wasn?t fully committed yet. I should probably have just been committed. But as the time passed and the surgery date drew near, I grew enthusiastic about actually going through with it. Yeah, it was a big step, but I felt I was ready.

The surgeon didn?t require lab tests prior to my surgery. This concerned me. I wanted to be sure there was nothing problematic lurking in my most inner parts. I scheduled a physical exam with my general practitioner for mid-February.

Everything was fine. My GP commented that I had lost weight since my last exam (woo hoo!) and my blood pressure was better than it had been. It was due to my sense of inner calm, I suppose.

I had a pre-op appointment with the plastic surgeon about a week prior to B-Day. Surgery was scheduled for 8:45 am. My instructions were no food after midnight. I was to take a valium about an hour prior to surgery. I was also instructed to get a front-zip sports bra to bring to the surgery so we?d have a bag to put the new additions in and take them home. He made sure I had reliable transportation to and from his office and someone to look after me post-surgery. The lovely and talented Miss Victoria, my main squeeze, sweet patootie, and love of my life, volunteered herself for the duty. I love that girl!
The night before my surgery, I slept like a log. No worries, no nagging doubts, just a warm anticipation. And all this with no drugs! All right!

I was up early the next morning. B-Day was here. No breakfast, no coffee, no nothing, except a little tiny pill. Ah well, small sacrifices. Victoria drove us to the surgeon?s office; we arrived right on time. Things got a little confusing after that. Took off my shirt and put on a gown, sat down in the chair and had a bit of small talk with Marilyn, Kris, and a nurse whose name I cannot remember. I was going to have what is called conscious sedation or twilight sleep anesthesia. It?s mostly local anesthetic injected into the area they?re actually working on to make it numb, plus an IV that makes you pretty much indifferent to what?s going on around you. Sort of like being a Republican, I guess.

The nurse put a transducer on my wrist, inserted an IV needle into my arm, and ummm, I was outta there?or was I?
I had the strangest dream. I was pleasantly floating in space. It was dark, and it was light, and there were people around me saying things that almost made sense, but I couldn?t quite understand what they were saying. It was like reading about a bridge game in the newspaper. West melded to East?s ruff and took the momewraith?s tricks and spaded the garden. I think I even participated in the discussion of the bridge game while I was dreaming. I?m sure I said things witty and apropos. I felt someone tugging at my chest hairs or something. Uh, wait a minute! I distinctly remember shaving my chest. What?s happening? Oh, that?s an odd sensation. I feel some pressure on my chest now. What could that be? Hey, that tickles! Oh well, back to dreamland....

They timed the anesthetic so I?d come back to consciousness shortly after they finished. These people really knew their stuff. Perfect timing. I wandered back to the land of the living at about 10:30, a bit woozy, surrounded by strangers and with the darndest feeling in my chest. I still had about a gallon of the local anesthetic sloshing around in there, so I was mostly numb, but even in that condition I realized something had changed.

Put my shirt back on and got instructions for pain management. I was still a bit dopey (all right, no comments from the peanut gallery), but Ms. Victoria got it all straight for me. We left the office, got into the car, and I promptly went back to sleep for the drive home. In the hour of driving, the anesthetic wore off and I was almost awake by the time we got home. I jumped out of the car and?no, wait, let?s be honest here?crawled out of the car and into the house, swallowed a pain pill, and went straight to bed.

I dozed for a couple of hours. Interesting dreams. Woke up with a couple of cantaloupes inserted under the skin on my chest. What the heck? Oh, yeah. I remember now. I took a quick peek under the sports bra, without unzipping the front. Wasn?t sure I could get it to close again if I opened it. Goodness gracious, there really are cantaloupes under my skin! Yikes! What have I done?

At that moment I had a serious attack of boobie remorse. How could I have done such a thing? What was I thinking? Am I nuts? It was terrible. It was awful. It was horrible. It was . . . Hey, wait a minute! I?ve got boobs! Cool! The boobie remorse lasted almost ten seconds. It was replaced by a warm and fuzzy feeling and a big smile. Woo hoo!

I went back to the surgeon?s office on Friday for a checkup and to have the steri-strips replaced. That?s the band-aid thing that covered the incision. I was surprised to learn there were no stitches involved on the outside incision. Cool! I worried that the implants might pop through the skin at the incision point if I got too frisky with them, but there was no real danger of that. The incisions were red and ugly, but my research indicated that this was normal at this stage of the game. I went for a second checkup the week after; everything was healing just fine. The rest of the recovery was mostly uneventful.

The surgeon did a wonderful job. At first, the twins were as hard as rocks and sat too high on my chest. Freaky, indeed. They hurt badly for a day or so, but then most of the pain went away. Ordinary Tylenol worked nicely.

Getting in and out of a waterbed without the use of your arms is quite a trick. I think I used two of the high-test pain pills. I had to sleep on my back for a week or so, and then was allowed to lie on my side and actually get some sleep.

My surgeon believes in compression to speed healing, so a zip-front sports bra was my constant companion for eight weeks, 24/7.

The healing process is slow. After about six weeks, the girls started to soften a bit as the skin stretched around them. They were still firm and positioned high on the chest. It takes six months to a year for them to settle into their final position and soften to the point that they feel like breasts. What?s really annoying is that they rarely heal at the same rate, so for a while, one may be a breast and the other a cantaloupe. Mine were about four weeks apart at the start, but they?ve evened out nicely now. The incision scars are almost gone. There were bouts of small pains and itchiness and numbness for about six months, as everything came back together?nothing serious. One lesson: don?t scratch your boobs in public. People will stare. Trust me on this one.

So here we are, the twins? first birthday. And the answers to the frequently asked questions:

What do they feel like?

Interesting question. The procedure didn?t add nerve endings to my body, just a bit of extra mass in strategic places. They feel (internally) exactly like they did before augmentation. The extra weight and flexibility makes them move differently against clothing, and going braless does cause the nipples to be more sensitive to external stimuli. This is not entirely unpleasant. Wearing a brassiere, I feel them more in the shoulder straps than at the breast surface. The weight, feel and bounciness are similar to external forms in a brassiere. I rather enjoy it.

Externally, they feel just like female breasts. Warm, firm, squishy, malleable and oooh!

How have people around you reacted to this?

Since I already had a noticeable chest prior to surgery and people around me got over it early, there seem to have been no adverse reactions. Besides, what possible business is it of theirs? There have been a couple of women who were visibly envious.

How much do they weigh?

About 2 pounds total.

What does Ms. Victoria think about all this?

She?s the coolest person in the world. She?s been supportive of my decision and we?re still together and more in love than ever.

Any surgical complications?

None at all. My surgeon did an excellent job.

Anything you would have done differently?

Almost everyone who has a breast augmentation will say, ?I should have gone bigger.? I would love to have done so, but the surgeon didn?t have room in my chest for more than 425 cc on each side. I?m now a genuine 36C.

I would have started sleeping on my tummy a bit sooner. That seems to accelerate the softening of the implants by compressing them more and keeping the pocket they?re in opened up. The tradeoff is that until they?re ready to be slept on, they hurt when you do that. Do what they tell you.

I would not have gone bra shopping at Victoria?s Secret so soon. My first junket was at about six weeks, and the girls were nowhere near ready to be harnessed. Underwires were torturous and the cantaloupes didn?t take kindly to being forced into unnatural positions. This situation is now firmly under control.

How much did it cost?

$4000 for the surgery and about $20,000 for new brassieres.

If you had it to do over, would you?

Oh yes. In a heartbeat.

Carla Fong is a self-employed firmware development engineer for embedded computer systems. You?ve used her software if you've ever booted up a PC, listened to music on a portable MP-3 player, or used a GPS receiver. She is a member of the Northwest Gender Alliance (Portland, Oregon). Carla can be reached by e-mail at carla2@wvi.com.