Before Motherhood Changed Everything, She Was Simply Herself
Sanjuna is an IT professional — methodical, capable, used to solving problems. Before she became a mother, she moved through her days with the quiet confidence of someone who had built a steady life for herself. She dressed how she liked, carried herself easily, and never gave much thought to the ordinary freedom of stepping out without planning what she would wear to conceal herself. Looking back now, she calls those months of struggle — not the surgery — the only pain she clearly remembers.
“Only pain I could see is the days that I had to hold these two things in place, not with the surgery.”
That clarity says something. The surgery was not the hard part. What came before it was.
After Delivery, Her Body Changed in Ways No One Had Warned Her About
The story actually began about three years before surgery. Sanjuna had noticed that her left breast was slightly larger than her right — roughly 20% more in volume. She had tests done. Everything came back normal. Doctors identified mild glandular growth and, given that she was planning to start a family, advised her to complete her pregnancy first and revisit the issue surgically afterward if needed. It seemed like a manageable situation — something to keep an eye on, not something to fear.
Pregnancy itself was largely uneventful. The size difference remained around 20 to 30 percent and did not cause her significant difficulty. She carried on.
Then she delivered her baby — and everything shifted.
In the weeks following childbirth, her left breast continued growing. What had been a modest difference became something far harder to live with. The left breast grew to approximately 70% larger in volume than the right. The asymmetry that had once been easy enough to manage quietly became visible, physically uncomfortable, and impossible to ignore. And for a new mother trying to feed a newborn, it became something much more than an appearance concern.
“Now you can see I am without a scar, fent or dupatta.”
She would say this later — on the other side of surgery — with the ease of someone who no longer had to think about it. But in those early postpartum weeks, that simplicity felt very far away.
Two Bras, a Shawl, and Two to Three Hours at the Pump — Every Single Day
What followed was five to six months of quiet, exhausting struggle — layered on top of the already demanding reality of new motherhood.
The inverted nipple on Sanjuna’s enlarged left breast meant her baby could not latch. Her gynecologist confirmed what she already suspected: breastfeeding directly on that side was not possible. Instead, Sanjuna spent two to three hours every single day using a breast pump to express milk, then feeding her daughter that way.
“I had to sit for at least 2-3 hours everyday with the milk exporter and had to export the milk and feed her which was like very very problematic situation.”
That daily routine — exhausting for any new mother — was just one layer of what she was managing. The physical asymmetry between a breast that was 70% larger in volume and the other meant that ordinary clothing no longer worked the way it once had. She began wearing two bras to keep things even and draped a dupatta or shawl over herself every time she left her room — whether she was stepping out of the house or simply moving through it.
“I was very low confident because I had to wear 2 bras just to have both of them in sync and I had to wear extra dupatta or shawl every time I had to go out or at least roam in the house.”
The mood swings came alongside the low confidence. The condition that had begun as a small, monitored asymmetry three years earlier had, in the space of a few postpartum months, taken a significant toll on who she felt herself to be.
“Being a mother itself is a tough phase and on top of it I had to undergo all of these for at least 5-6 months.”
She was not exaggerating. She was simply naming what it costs to carry something like this quietly, without resolution, while also learning how to be a mother.
A Surgeon’s Confidence Became the Turning Point
Sanjuna’s husband, himself a general physician, was the one who encouraged her to seek a surgical consultation — not to rush toward an answer, but to understand what options actually existed. Several people in her circle, her husband among them, recommended Dr. Anjali Saple at Divyam Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery in Visakhapatnam.
She arrived at the clinic uncertain. She had not walked in with a clear plan or the confidence that a solution was within reach. She explained her situation — the years of asymmetry, the post-delivery worsening, the breastfeeding difficulties, the months of managing it all alone.
Dr. Saple listened. And then she spoke with the kind of calm certainty that changes the shape of a conversation.
“She was very confident that my old age could come back. So just looking at her face, I had this motivational spark.”
That was enough. Sanjuna said yes to surgery.
She was admitted, underwent breast reduction surgery under general anesthesia, and describes the experience as almost imperceptible — quick, calm, over before she had fully registered it was happening.
“I got admitted just on a random day, took anesthesia and within no time I didn’t even realize that the surgery went.”
She was discharged within one day. The procedure that had felt like a weighty, uncertain decision on the way in was already behind her.
The results were immediate and lasting. The asymmetry was corrected. Sanjuna could hold her baby on both sides for the first time since delivery — previously, only the right side had been possible. The two bras were gone. The dupatta was no longer something she reached for before leaving her room. The mood swings lifted. Her confidence, she says, came back with her.
What She Wants Other Mothers to Know
Sanjuna’s message is simple and direct: if you are carrying something like this — something physical, something that is quietly reshaping your confidence and your daily life — you do not have to keep managing it alone.
She found in Dr. Anjali Saple not just a skilled surgeon but someone she describes as warm, friendly, and genuinely attentive to her patients. The months of struggle before surgery were real. But so was the resolution — and it came faster, and more completely, than she had let herself hope.