My Navel Piercing (3 yrs old and healed)
Megan

Allow me to introduce myself: (I have always wanted to say that. ;) lol.) My name is Megan and I am from West Valley City, Utah. I just recently turned seventeen, and I have two new piercings because of it. (Those will be different stories.) While West Valley is a big place, not too many modders live here. I admit that it would be nice to have a bodmod circle of friends; confidants that I could talk to and ask questions of, but on-line communities have seemed to be the same thing for me.

My first piercings were a very long time ago. I was the tender age of six years old, and my mother took me to get my ears pierced. Of course, she hadn't researched much, and I ended up getting pierced with a gun. They were badly placed,  got badly infected, and took almost a full 8 months to heal, but they healed, and are still pierced to this day. I didn't think much about piercings for quite a few years after that, seeing as how the first ones were such a bad experience, but when I was twelve I began to have a fascination with piercings. Whenever I would meet someone that had (what seemed to me) off the wall piercings such as: tongue, eyebrow, labret (yes, I know! Oh my goodness! lol.) I would ask whatever questions I could think of pertaining to bodmod.

A few more years passed, and while I had not gotten any new piercings, I certainly understood about them a lot more. The summer after I turned fourteen, I began to beg my mom. ...Just one piercing, please? You won't even notice it... Of course, she said that if I got a piercing that would ease my Dad into the idea, and could be hidden if I wanted to hide it from anyone, then she would take me. We talked to my dad, and he was completely against it. I began to think of ways to get him to concede, but later found out that I didn't need to think of anything.

One day, while my mom and I were out driving, she asked me if I still wanted my piercing. Of course I said yes. She drove me to Blue Boutique, and we told them that I wanted my navel pierced. Now pause. I know that everyone says that "everyone has a navel piercing, they aren't even worth getting" but in actuality, it is a good piercing to start with. The pain level is minimal, and while aftercare must be dilligent, it is rather easy. So, Mom and I started looking around while Jesse took the jewelry I chose back to be sterilized along with every other tool he was going to be using. About ten minutes later, he came out to get me. We went to his piercing room, Mom tailing closely behind, and I sat down on his piercing table. His is very comfortable, and is upholstered with a tiger-like patterned cloth underneath the plastic covering. His room has a comfortable atmosphere with different pottery-type sconces on the walls, and a lot of pictures of his work. (All of the piercers' ce rtification papers are on the wall behind the counter in the piercing section of the store, where the jewelry is sold.)

He told me to lay down on the table and lift my shirt up to beneath my chest. He donned a pair of latex gloves and reached for his marking tools. (Very technical at a toothpick and purplish-blue ink. lol.) He marked where the entrance and exit holes would be and asked me to look at them to see if they were placed how I wanted them. While I stood and looked in the floor-length mirror he has in his room, he changed his gloves. I told them they looked good and he asked me to lay back down again. He swabbed around my belly button, making sure that the area was very clean, and lubricated the needle and jewelry. He told me to close my eyes and start breathing deeply and slowly. He made sure I knew exactly what was going on at all times. ...You're going to feel the clamp go on now... This is about the point that I started getting butterflies in my stomach, but it wasn't really nervousness, just anxiousness. ...You'll feel me setting up... I swear, at this point, Mom looked more scared than I did. That made me smile. ...Okay, take one more deep breath... As I breathed in, he told me ...Here comes the needle... and as I let my breath out, he slid the needle through.

I expected it to hurt... badly... It didn't. :) I won't lie to you, I did feel pain. There was a needle piercing through my flesh, of course I did. :) It wasn't severe though. He took the needle out and put in the jewelry. It hurt when he screwed on the top ball, but then he was done, and beautiful metal now adorned my belly. I was excited for the rest of the day. I used a sterile saline solution to clean it, twice a day for four months, then once a day for two more. I did sea salt soaks for eight minutes every day for the first month, and it healed very nicely. I love the way it looks, even to this day. Anyone who wants this piercing, but is having doubts, get it. You won't regret it. :)