An IT Professional, a New Mother, and a Body She No Longer Recognized
Sanjuna had always been practical, composed, the kind of person who managed things. As an IT professional, she was used to problem-solving. But the months after her baby arrived confronted her with something she couldn’t optimize her way out of — her own body was changing in ways she had never anticipated, and the woman she had always known herself to be felt increasingly distant.
“I was very low, I was like less confident… I had a lot of mood swings and I wasn’t able to take it because this was never a situation for me earlier.”
This wasn’t who she was. She had carried a quiet awareness of her left breast being slightly larger for about three years — tests had come back normal, doctors had reassured her — but it had never defined her. Until it did.
After Delivery, Everything Shifted in Ways She Wasn’t Prepared For
She had known about the asymmetry going into pregnancy. At around 20–30% larger, her left breast had been manageable, something she monitored but didn’t dwell on. But after delivery, it changed entirely. The left breast grew to approximately 70% larger than the right, and with it came a problem more urgent than appearance: she couldn’t feed her baby.
The nipple on her left side wasn’t protruding. Her baby couldn’t latch. What should have been one of the most natural moments of new motherhood became a daily two-to-three-hour exercise in using a milk extractor just to express and feed — exhausting, isolating, and relentless.
“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.”
For five to six months, she carried all of this — the asymmetry, the feeding struggle, the emotional weight — alongside the ordinary demands of caring for a newborn. There was no clean separation between the physical problem and everything else. They pressed on each other, constantly.
Two Bras, a Dupatta, and Five Months of Getting Through Each Day
Every morning before leaving her room, Sanjuna put on two bras. Then, if she was going anywhere — even elsewhere in the house — she layered a dupatta or shawl over herself to conceal what had become a source of profound self-consciousness. The physical workaround had become ritual, and the ritual had become exhausting.
“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 any room in the house.”
Her gynecologist acknowledged the situation. Her husband, a general physician, suggested she consult a surgeon — not necessarily to commit to surgery, but to understand her options. Multiple people in her circle pointed her toward Dr. Anjali Saple at Divyam Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery in Visakhapatnam. Her husband was among them.
She made the appointment. But she arrived at the clinic uncertain — uncertain whether a real solution existed, uncertain what she would be told, uncertain whether she was ready for what came next.
When the surgery did come — admitted on what she describes simply as a random day, placed under general anesthesia — the experience itself was almost disarmingly unremarkable in the best possible way.
“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 a single day. After five to six months of physical and emotional strain, the surgical experience itself barely registered as an ordeal.
A Face That Said: Your Life Can Come Back
What tipped Sanjuna from uncertainty to yes wasn’t a brochure, a statistic, or a lengthy explanation. It was something simpler — she looked at Dr. Anjali’s face during the consultation and saw confidence. Not the polished reassurance of someone reciting talking points, but the settled certainty of a surgeon who understood exactly what she was looking at and knew what she could do about it.
Dr. Anjali listened to everything. Then she told Sanjuna that her previous quality of life could be restored.
“She was very confident that my old age could come back. So just looking at her face, I had this motivational spark, so I just said yes to the surgery.”
That was the moment. Not a long deliberation. Not weeks of back-and-forth. A face that communicated competence and care, and a patient who had been carrying too much for too long finally finding somewhere safe to put it down.
The breast reduction surgery addressed the severe asymmetry directly — correcting the disproportionate enlargement of the left breast, resolving the nipple protrusion issue that had made breastfeeding impossible, and restoring symmetry between both sides. The results were immediate and lasting.
“Even now when I look at the bad days, only pain I could see is the day that I had to hold these two things in place, not with the surgery.”
Looking back, the surgery doesn’t register as the hard part. The hard part was everything before it.
“Now you can see I am without a scarf and dupatta. Everything was very well done.”
The two bras are gone. The dupatta worn as armor is gone. Sanjuna can now hold her baby on both sides — something that, for half a year, had simply been impossible. The left side that once caused so much anguish is now, unremarkably, just the other side.
What She Wants Other Women to Know
Sanjuna speaks about Dr. Anjali the way people speak about someone who genuinely changed things for them — not with practiced enthusiasm, but with the particular warmth of lived gratitude.
“She was very good at handling her patients, she was very friendly, she was such a sweetheart.”
And her message to other women who might be where she was — managing something that feels too personal to name, unsure if it’s serious enough to seek help for, not knowing where to go — is direct and unhurried: come and talk. Sit down. Explain the situation.
“If you have any problems, anything, something similar to me and if you have no person to reach out, you can come here, sit here, discuss your problems with her and she will take care of you.”
Sometimes the most important step is simply finding the right face to look into — one that looks back with confidence and says: yes, this can be fixed.