Every year for my birthday since I was 18, I get a new piercing. That gives me one year to decide where I'm putting that next hole in my body and find out the history of it, the care and anything else of insight. So this year I decide its time for my nipples.
At A Glance Author Vanessa Contact verticalabret2@aol.com When A year ago Artist Sarah Eicher Studio Checkered Past Location New Cumberland, Pennsylvania With my birthday a month away I had been searching diligently for information. So I go into Checkered Past, the shop I've gotten my other eight piercings at, and search for jewelry and ask questions and prices. They also have a book of pictures and a folder of personal experiences. This I find to be very helpful when the pictures online aren't as clear and I sometimes know the people who left their stories behind.
Finding the answers to my questions appealing I leave the shop and go to my car. Well, it turns out my car has overheated and I would be stuck there for a good hour or more. I don't see a reason to post-pone this any longer. I return to the shop. I smile at Wesley (the head piercer) and say lets do it.
Sarah is doing the piercings today and I am fine with that. I trust the people and experience of the piercers there. I only had one bad experience (four year earlier)with the shop and that piercer is long gone.
After much thought I am down to choosing between a 12g and 14g ring because a ring would be easier to clean during the healing process. I point out my jewelry and decide on a 14 g to start as I might stretch them at a later time. We go into the front room which is set aside for piercing. It is very clean, spacious and completely closed off from the rest of the shop. Sarah directs me to a table that looks a lot like the ones you'd find in the doctor's offices.
I take off my shirt and bra and sit down on the table. Sarah marks where she feels would look best and holds up a mirror. I agree with one side but not the other so she wipes off the dots and tries again, I like it better this time. I lay back on the table and she gets everything ready. She starts by clamping the left nipple and that didn't hurt at all just felt like someone was pinching the nipple. Then, she says "OK, I want you to breath with me and I'm going to count to three and then pierce." I breath in then out, One. In then out, two. In, the needle goes through, out.
I winced and it hurt but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. I will admit to thinking twice before getting my right side done but I realized that if I didn't do it now I might never do it. So we repeated the same process on the other side. Then, we had to change to a larger size ball so as to keep the circular shape of the ring. She put those in and that stung a bit since she bumped the newly torn skin in the process.
Now, all I had to worry about was the Type-O Negative, Halloween concert the next night. By the way-I had no problems dancing as I decided to wear a corset to keep the piercings from shifting while dancing or being bumped by other people.
Overall, I feel as though I had a very good experience with getting the piercings done. They healed nicely in a few months. I just made sure to not lay on my belly to sleep for the first month. I changed to wearing barbells for comfort about four months after the piercings were done. The problem I ran into was when I had the piercings for five months and I found out I was pregnant.
Then, at the birth of my son I took out the right side to nurse him. In hopes of being able to replace the ring after each feeding. I was upset that after he was finished I couldn't get the ring back in. I had done a lot of research on the web on being able to successfully breastfeed with the piercings intact and had found many places that said it was possible. I then decided to keep the left side in while leaving the right side out and after two weeks of this I was sore. I changed my mind after much deliberation and took out the left side as well. The pinching just wasn't worth the piercing.
This proves that you can successfully breastfeed your child with the piercings intact (just watch that they don't come off in your child's mouth while feeding to prevent choking)! I just couldn't do it to my own comfort but it didn't interfere with him being able to latch on properly or get the milk he needed.
I might one day get them re-pierced but I haven't decided whether going through scar tissue is worth the look of the piercing I had grown to love or not. I still miss seeing them when I look into the mirror.