My day: a tale of the joys of nursing bra shopping

I'd like to take you on a journey with me. Now, in order for this exercise to work, you'll need to be at least a DDD cup, but preferably closer to a J. If you are smaller, have no fear. Just take two full sandbags of unequal sizes and staple one to each side of your chest. Now get a small watermelon and staple that to your belly, because--surprise!--you are also 6 months pregnant. Wait a few minutes until your back is sore. If the pain is searing, wait a couple weeks until the pain has diminished to a dull but constant ache.

 Your supplies:

   

If you are indeed pregnant, mentally prepare yourself to repeatedly hear, "You're how far along? You're tiny!" Big chests like to hog all the attention, so they create this crazy optical illusion like your bulging belly is in fact tiny. This is because most expecting women have bellies that protrude beyond their breasts, while you will have the opposite problem until you are around 56 weeks pregnant. If your chest could be shrunk to a normal size, you would like a normal pregnant lady, but instead you just look a little pudgy. Kinda like a cranky walrus, but not as cute.

While most mommy blogs (which are always accurate *sarcasm* and the #1 reason why American mothers are the most neurotic in the world *not sarcasm*) insist that you should wait to get a nursing bra until after your baby is born in order to buy an accurate size, you opt to not do that for the following reasons:

1) While the idea of bra shopping with an active toddler and a potentially colicky baby while functioning on high levels of postpartum hormones and little sleep sounds like a lot of fun, you have enough sense to know that employees probably won't appreciate an emotional breakdown in their store while your tot has a hay day trying on all the neat siamese hats in the store and your baby screams in its carseat. 

2) The memory of your past online nursing bra shopping experience makes you hyperventilate and you're still trying to suppress the feeling of wanting to throw your computer at the wall whenever the term "nursing bra" is mentioned at play group.

3) This ain't your first rodeo show. While yes, your chest will grow (significantly, I might add), prior experience has taught you that, no matter your size, you are going to be buying the largest sandbag holder they own. You might as well get it out of the way now while your hormonal levels are at level: caution instead of later when they are at level: tranquilizers and institutionalization needed.

4) When your milk comes in, your boobs will be so large that you'll need a wheelbarrow in order to carry them around and you won't be able to leave the house for fear that the circus might kidnap you to put in their freaky humans show. 

If my art career doesn't work out, I guess I have a fallback

Now you're ready to go! With any luck, you have at least one child, which means you'll be running lots of other errands today in a desperate attempt to squeeze all your chores into the one day Dad can stay home with them. Go drive around for an hour and a half with an incomplete address, as the closest lingerie store that *might* have something close to your size is about 45 minutes away. Once, you did try looking for a shop in your city, but it turns out that the only one listed online was put on Yelp as a prank, and when you called the number listed someone quickly became extremely cranky when you asked if they were The Love Monkey Boutique. True story. You have asked your busty relatives what they did in their child-bearing years, but instead of advice, a far-off harrowed look appeared in their suddenly darkened eyes as the memories of a horrific past and PTSD lingered near the surface of their conscience.

Back to our own shopping adventure: Arrive at your destination and enter. Walk past the cute printed bras without looking at them. Some lucky B-cup gets those, but you never will. Unless of course, you get a reduction, in which case prepare for a lot of people silently judging you when truthfully answer their question of how you magically lost all that weight and back pain. Go straight to the granny bras, which are inaccurately nicknamed, because we all know that granny saggy boobs don't need bras, they need tube socks. Speaking of which, legend has it that one of my ancestors had boobs so large, that when she became an elderly woman she would sprinkle her "girls" with baby powder (to prevent sticking) and would literally roll them up like a freaking mammary cinnamon bun and stick them into her bra. I'm not even kidding.

My future.

But I digress. 

Most shop keepers are friendly, so feel free to ask all the questions you need, but a man just sauntered into the store, so don't get too comfortable (doesn't he have a sports game he could watch or something??). Try on all the bras you think might be in your size. Don't worry, they will be easy to locate--they are the ones you used to gawk at as a kid and put on your face and pretend were sunglasses. Discover that the second largest size they have already fits snugly, even for your smaller boob. You still have 3 months before your milk will actually come in, an event that will increase your boob size by at least 2-3 cups. Doing the math, this means that the largest size they have won't actually be big enough for your needs, but since you have no other options, grab half the store's stock in that size anyway. So, 1 bra. (The loan you had to take out to afford this bra won't cover the 2nd one.)

The employee nervously tries to tell you that they really don't recommend buying nursing bras until after the baby is born. While you awkwardly try to explain your reasons without being rude, some other gray-haired customer pipes in her unsolicited opinion that she agrees, you should wait, she knows because she just had her 7th kid. Your hormonal levels, which have already been shaky, increase by 20 degrees and you want to snap, "Yeah I can tell, maybe you should stop having kids" but you refrain because 1) you are a Christian and 2) you have a creepy feeling that this elderly-looking woman might actually be you ten years in the future coming to send you a desperate warning.

Buy the bra. Try to ignore the price tag and your bulging breasts' desperate cries for help.

Now, if your experience wasn't this successful or fun, you can always order two 20-man camping tents and rig them together with bungee cords and an industrial-sized sewing machine to make your own nursing bra. In fact, all the pockets those tents come with will probably be really useful for storing the formula and bottles you'll need when your supply is low, because in a sick twist of fate big boobs don't always make very much milk for your starving and wailing bundle of joy. Heaven forbid your boobs should actually do their one job! (Okay your boobs do have another job, but we wouldn't want feminazis to think that we actually like that our husbands appreciate our curves.)

Congratulations! You have finished shopping for a nursing bra. Now go treat yourself to a kid-free Target trip and just be grateful that at least you didn't have to go maternity swimsuit shopping.

Women who just returned from bra shopping