I've made a difficult decision

Ok not really, I hope that title didn't sound too serious. I've decided to remove my belly button ring...permanently. I got the silly thing when I was 16 and it served it's purpose. Made me look cool, sexy, risque, whatever look I was going for at that age...now I'm not really sure why I got it. It hurt like Heck and even got infected once. I just feel like I need to move on and leave my younger days aka belly button ring, behind me. I'm also worried about what it is going to look like when I have kids someday. A friend of mine left hers in until she was in her 6th month and it looked really bad when she finally did take it out, like a giant horrible stretch mark. So I figured the sooner I take it out, the sooner it will heal up...if it heals up.