All right, all right, I admit it: I'm not a typical woman. I don't understand how shopping for clothes can be therapeutic or even fun. Manolo Blahnik shoes (the ones that Madonna claims are better than sex) leave me cold, if somewhat amused: do people really spend thousands of dollars on a strap of shocking-pink leather connected to an almost-vertical shoe sole that makes your foot look like a heron in mid-dive?
Nevertheless, I do have a clothes-related weak spot: lingerie.
Now, I am a woman, not a supermodel, so I don't mean all that itsy-bitsy G-string type lingerie. But I do mean satin and silk and stretchy soft lace, a suggestion here, a revelation there. The keywords are "comfort" and "sex-goddess".
Naturally, such lingerie doesn't come cheap. We're talking $150 for a "special occasions" silk set, or $60 for a decent "everyday" bra and matching knickers. So you can imagine the damage to my bank account every time my breasts change size.
And change size they do. In the second trimester of my pregnancy, I gave up hoping that I could sail through pregnancy in my "fat clothes", and I went to a shop specialising in lingerie for "the fuller figure". You see, it wasn't only the cup size that shot up, it was also the under-the-breast measurements (my ribs expanded to accommodate the little tenant and suddenly my usual suppliers didn't stock the size I required). In the specialist shop, I parted with a small fortune, but I consoled myself with the thought that pregnant women need to feel good about themselves. The keywords were still very much "comfort" and "sex-goddess", so it was all worth it.
Then came the shock of buying a feeding bra. "You're not a 16DD," I was told by the maternity hospital expert, "you are 12F." Slam! Into the shopping bag went an ugly beige number with cups the size of satellite dishes. $50 for the displeasure. I wore it only once and it felt awful. I spent my breastfeeding year in white cotton maternity bras from Triumph that felt great and looked ok, even though they didn't feature a single piece of lace. The keyword was "comfort" only.
If you're counting, you know that by now I have a collection of pre-pregnancy lingerie, the pregnancy sets as well as the breastfeeding kit. When my daughter made her preference for the milk bottle permanent, I tried on every single bra I possessed (32 - I counted). Not a single one fitted. And the under-wire, so essential in the past, suddenly felt like a whalebone corset.
While I'm saving money for my fourth - post-breastfeeding - collection of satin and silk, I make do with bra extension straps and with breasts that overfill my bra cups like well-risen yeast dough. I've considered going without ("what do you mean, I'm not wearing a bra? Am too. It's just a very special bra: you can only see it if your heart is pure"), but here is another truth they never told us about in prenatal classes: after baby, your breasts will fail the pencil test, every time.
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