Melissa Gilbert has taken her decision to have her breast implants removed public, speaking honestly about the process in a recent blog post titled “A Tale of Two Titties.”

Melissa Gilbert Opens Up About Breast Implants

Gilbert first alerted fans of her plans to have her implants removed on New Year’s Eve, when she posted “A Tale of Two Titties” to her blog. In the post, Gilbert described her road to plastic surgery and what drove her to get implants in the first place.

Gilbert, whose teenage years were televised while she starred on Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1983, wrote that, when she first developed her breasts, she was pleased with them – “I have to say, when the boob fairy did wave her wand, she granted me great boobs…. They were right for my body-type. Perfect A cups. I was a proud, card-carrying member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.”

However, Gilbert, like any woman, was bombarded with messages from pop culture and the media that she, as a woman, should change her body or strive to a physical ideal. Gilbert recounted how she was asked to wear padded bras in the later years of Little House and on other projects, but admitted that she would have certainly felt similar pressures had she not been in the spotlight.

“This is our culture. It has been for a long, long time and I fell right into it. I believed that, not only would I work more, but people would love me more if I looked a certain way. Sad but true. My self-image was in the proverbial toilet. Strangely enough though, it didn’t extend to my breasts. I was really happy with them,” Gilbert wrote.

According to Gilbert, it wasn’t until after she had her first child that she felt a certain amount of shame in her breasts. Most notably, she recounted an altercation between herself and her then-husband, who refereed to her breasts as “socks full of marbles with knots at the top.”

Gilbert later got breast implants, had another child and later decided to replace her saline implants with silicone implants that would have to be replaced every 10 or 15 years. Gilbert said she felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that she would have to go through surgery every decade, and, after much care and consideration, decided to have her implants removed. Gilbert stated at the top of her lengthy blog post her reasons for having them removed, writing, “I am concerned for my health and…I don’t like the way they look or feel. Frankly, I’d like to be able to take a Zumba class without the fear that I’ll end up with two black eyes.”

Gilbert concluded her post encouraging fans to think seriously before getting elective plastic surgery, specifically encouraging older fans to embrace the natural aging process. “Aging is a gift not a curse. Love yourself. You are perfectly beautiful. You are enough,” she wrote.

Gilbert had her breast implants removed in the first week of January and updated her followers on Twitter shortly after, writing, “In recovery. Surgery went great.”

In recovery. Surgery went great. No the recovery begins. #boobies!

— Melissa Gilbert (@MelissaEGilbert) January 6, 2015