This belly button piercing story was submitted by Allie Pisarro from Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Send in yours HERE and get a free belly button ring!
“Santy! Let’s get piercings together!!” I said to my fiancé, Santiago, the day after coming back from the beaches of Ecuador. We had met three Canadian friends there who all got impromptu piercings, and it made me want to get one, too!
My piercing story may get a few wide eyes from American professional piercers since it’s a little adventurous, but I can promise that I’ve only chosen sterile, safe environments to get my piercings… even if they were overseas. Bear with me, as it may get a little long…. 😉
I had always secretly wanted a belly ring. Piercings were always fun to me, but even though I desired to have that pretty silver jewelry in my belly that would shine in the sun at the beach, I also always told myself that it was off limits. Why? Because I never thought I was the appropriate weight for them ❗ Even though I was never obese, I always felt “fat” and not good enough to wear a bikini (not just from my own mind, but I was also told the same by others). I stopped wearing bikinis at the age of 13 and started wearing tankinis (two pieces that cover the belly area). At that age I also became semi-anorexic, allowing myself to eat very little. That only lasted a year, and I was back to eating junk again! 😀
Years passed, and the thought of a belly piercing would cross my mind at times. I started to tell myself that I could get a belly ring if I “became skinny”. It became my new goal, but it was never achieved. I was never the weight or the look that I wanted to be, so I gave up on the idea 🙁
I began to get other piercings. My nose piercing was the first piercing adventure that I had as an adult. While on a mission trip in Africa with my college freshman year, I, with two other girls, decided to spontaneously get my nose pierced. The nurse (our leader) found a clean, sterile place, and we did it! I was so hyped that I got my second ear piercing, as well! This lead me to get my ears pierced another five times and then eventually got my lip pierced a year later.
Again, the idea of a belly ring was still off limits for me! But one day while I was living in Ecuador with my fiancé (who is Ecuadorian), I couldn’t get it off my mind. My fiancé, who doesn’t have any piercings, had mentioned that he wanted to get an industrial; he saw a sword industrial that he really wanted.
I had been working out and eating healthy for the past year and had realized that my goal wasn’t to be skinny but to be healthy. With that goal, I lost much more body fat than I had ever before. Though I wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be weight-wise, I felt more confident and better about the way I looked. For the first time, before coming to Ecuador for five months, I tried on bikinis at the store and LOVED them. For once I didn’t feel ‘fat’ or ‘gross’; I felt confident 🙂
That being said, the idea of the belly ring was no longer off limits and was something I started to really, really want! However, it was still nerve-wracking! Although I had 11 other piercings, I was nervous about getting my belly pierced. Yet it was something I knew that I would love, so I told my fiancé that we should just go and do it! 😉
The day we were going to do it, Santiago chickened out last minute. So we waited a few days and then went just a few weeks ago (July 31st, 2014!). We chose a place in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, because it was well-known, and it was clean and sterile. Many of our friends had gotten piercings there, and they had a wide array of jewelry. It was pretty cheap to get it done (considering it’s expensive in the States!), so we were really happy about the price!
However, I was so anxious that I thought I’d faint. I’d been researching belly rings for the past 24 hours and didn’t sleep the night before. Everyone kept saying it’d only be a pinch, but I was not so sure about that.
The place actually gave me water because I was shaking so much and could barely breathe ❗ My fiancé was calm and trying to calm me down.
I picked out my jewelry, which was a standard silver belly ring with a gem. They told me I couldn’t pick out anything dangly, as it has to heal first. I looked around the place to make sure it looked clean and safe. It wasn’t a very big piercing place, but everything looked pretty clean, and they used new needles.
I speak both English and Spanish, but my piercer only spoke Spanish (obviously). She didn’t say much, but she seemed pretty nice. She was trying to help calm me down, but I was so worried about the pain that I couldn’t really focus. I don’t think she ever even told us her name, though!
She had me stand up instead of sit down, which made me even more nervous ❗ She put a kind of anesthesia spray on my belly to numb it a bit, which I thought was going to help a lot with the pain. She then marked the spots and put a clamp on my belly. I held tight to my fiancé’s hand and squeezed as I felt the needle go through from the bottom to the top. I don’t know what everyone was talking about because it definitely hurt! It was a quick but painful pinch! My fiancé kept saying, “It’s okay; it’s over, it’s over!” But my body was still stiff! Honestly, though, the pain lasted for one second and was so worth it.
After she put the jewelry straight through, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked happily in the mirror. I was SO happy that I had done it! My adrenaline was still pumping (as was my heart), but I was so excited to be able to show it off!
I honestly can’t even remember if our piercer gave us aftercare tips, but I don’t think that she did. I did ask her how to clean around it, though, because the curved barbell seemed so small! She showed me that I can push it up and down, though, and to clean around the barbell. Maybe she assumed that I already knew how to clean it, since I had other visible piercings. Regardless, that was one thing I was not happy with. I would have liked to have been told something about cleaning afterwards! I had to learn all of that with some help from the Internet and blogs like this one!
Once I was finished, my fiancé then sat down to get his industrial done, but, well, that’s a story for him to tell. 🙂
Obviously I have not completely healed yet, as it’s only been a few weeks, but I have been cleaning it and taking good care of it! It has gotten a little crusty and has bled a little but so far it has been all right! Of course soreness and tenderness is to be expected with piercings. I can’t wait to change it (after a while, though!) because I’d like something cute to wear for our wedding, which is in September, 2015! (maybe you can choose something from the diamond belly ring range?)
Overall I am so happy that I got my belly button done. I’d encourage anyone to not focus on being a certain weight in order to get it done. It should be about being HEALTHY, not about being “skinny enough”. If I waited until I was “skinny enough”, I’d have never done it. But regardless I think it looks great! I just went to the beach again in Ecuador but this time I got to show off my new belly ring… and my confidence.
Note: I was over the age of 18 for all of my piercings, and I got my belly pierced just a few weeks shy of being 23 years old. Obviously I didn’t need permission for any of my piercings, and although it took them a little while, I think my piercings grew on my parents! 😀
* * *
Thanks Allie for submitting this piercing story, and give her thumbs up by liking it on Facebook and other social media accounts by using the toolbar below ❗
Got a piercing? Submit your piercing story here and get free body jewelry!
If your story is published and you can get 50 facebook likes on the story I will also send you Playboy body jewelry worth $24.99!!