Botched twice, blissed out the third time.

After two breast augmentations left her uncomfortable, disappointed and scrambling for answers, a California woman says she finally got the results she’d been chasing — and now she’s warning other women not to rush into surgery without doing serious homework.

“Looking back, I would have scheduled multiple consultations with different surgeons and given myself six months to a year before making any decision,” Cheyenne Caspary, 35, told PEOPLE. “I was young during my first surgery and not confident enough to trust my gut over what a surgeon was telling me.”

Caspary said she went into her first procedure flat-chested, eager and uninformed.

“At 20, my frontal lobe wasn’t fully developed,” she wrote in a recent Instagram post, adding a laughing emoji, “and I was just so excited to finally afford something I had wanted since I was a little girl.”

She now admits she’d been hasty, going into her first operation without the kind of research she now says is essential. That surgery later led to capsular contracture, a painful complication that can cause scar tissue to tighten around the implant.

“I didn’t ask a single question,” the Morgan Hill, Calif. resident admitted.

“I asked for a full C and measured a 34 triple D after surgery. Nobody discussed over [versus] under the muscle, long-term complications or anything beyond the day of.”

An injury prompted her second surgery — where Caspary said she was talked into a lift and larger implants, but quickly felt something was off. According to her account, the implants “bottomed out,” meaning the implants had, over time, descended too low on her chest.

“My second surgery came after an injury. Again, no real conversation about placement, complications or long-term outcomes … I didn’t advocate for myself the way I should have,” she told her followers on social media, where she typically shares wellness advice.

That’s when she says she got serious. After diving deep into research, consulting multiple surgeons and learning more about the difference between over-the-muscle and under-the-muscle implants, Caspary decided to try again.

Six years after her second surgery, she underwent a revision with Miami plastic surgeon Dr. Leonard Hochstein — and says this time, everything changed.

Her meeting with Dr. Hochstein led her to decide on smaller implants for her third go-around.

“In my consultation, I kept pointing to one of Dr. Hochstein’s patients, saying I love how close they sit. How, even though they were small, she still had full cleavage,” she wrote on Instagram.

That’s when the doctor explained the concept of upper pole fullness, which refers to the volume and rounded contour of the breast tissue, giving them a more youthful appearance.

“I had never heard those words in 15 years and three surgeries,” she continued. “I went smaller than I ever had. And finally got the cleavage I always wanted.”

Now, Caspary says she’s finally pain-free and happy with the look of her breasts — and wants others to slow down, trust their instincts and remember that bigger isn’t always better.

“I view everything as a lesson,” she said.

“Each surgery freed me from something. Each one made me stronger. None of them were mistakes. They were steps.”