It's more tingly than hot

That's right folks! I officially got my very first tattoo today! After four years of mulling over possible designs and spending the last few months hemming and hawing on a location on my body, size, tattoo shop and artist, I pulled the trigger today and could not be happier with the results:) Over the past month, I have had to reschedule (because of holiday/birthday conflicts on my side) with my tattoo guy, Adam, a time or two, but I made it in today at 4:00 p.m. with Adam by my side in case it hurt like a biotch! For the record it did not :)

I woke up this morning feeling confident and excited. I headed to jazzercise at noon after having a cup of coffee and it wasn't until my way home around 1:15 p.m. that I started thinking about what I should and shouldn't be doing on tattoo appointment day. Maybe I should Google it?? So I did and I found the following: lay off caffeine, eat meals, drink plenty of water, don't take any blood thinning meds like headache pills, and oh yeah...don't consume alcohol 2-3 days prior. Crap. I had wine last night while we were putting up the tree at Adam's parent's house along with a beer later on, woke up this morning and had two ibuprofen (on account of the glasses of vino :) before jazzercise, no breakfast aaaaand coffee! Off to a great start! I called tattoo Adam and asked if I needed to bring anything...my tattoo newbieness was showing:) All I ended up needing to bring was a copy of my design, which ended up being the one I presented originally to Adam, turns out it was already perfect and he could find no way to tweak it to make it better suited for me :) I made myself eat scrambled eggs and potatoes along with ritz and peanut butter and of course LOTS of agua in the two hours before we headed to my appointment. I was not about to be the fainting girl!

Adam and I showed up at right at 4:00 and got settled in while tattoo Adam drew out my design (he flipped it and made it bigger to fit the inside of my right forearm) and went out for a smoke...I peed TWICE (I'm an anxious pee-er and had consumed mass quantities of water beforehand mind you!) Before I knew it he was calling us back to get started! I sat right down in the chair and put my arm on the plastic covered arm rest. He had everything out and ready and you better believe I asked him and made sure everything was new, clean and sterile before we began! I also asked my Adam to tell me if he got any weird vibes when we walked in, but Anatomy Tattoo shop passed both our inspections:) Tattoo Adam put the stencil on my arm, I checked it out in the mirror, showed my Adam for confirmation and gave the thumbs up to start. Here we gooooooooo!!! I'm not sure what I was expecting it to feel like, but getting a tattoo was not nearly as painful as I was prepared for. I figured that because I have such a strong dislike for needles that I would need to hold Adam's hand and bite down on something to keep from crying or flinching! Adam sat by me, but I didn't need to hold his hand:) I watched as tattoo Adam completed the outline and began filling in my design. The three of us chatted easily about tattoos, life, and such and before I knew it we were finishing up! The whole tattoo took a little over 35 minutes to complete. I was also surprised at how little it bled. I think I was expecting crazy pain and lots of blood :) If I was to describe how getting a tattoo felt, I would say it was more annoying than painful and felt a bit like repeated stinging by a bee. I have felt much more painful things before. I'm sure there are other places hurt more than the inner forearm though.

All in all, my first tattoo experience was more than I was hoping for :) I was pleasantly surprised at how brave and able to withstand the needle pain I was and actually enjoyed the process. Uh oh...you know what that means... :) more tattoos in my future!