This post originally appeared on DC Metro Moms on April 7, 2009
A bra costs WHAT?
I feel like Sleeping Boobie. In 2006, I had a baby. Three years later, he weans and I find out that a nice bra costs as much as a good massage.
I’m sure you can get a decent bra for less. But the day I was packing away my nursing bras and realizing I needed to seriously consider what else I had, I happened to open the Garnet Hill catalog that mysteriously appears now in my mailbox (as if I actually shop for non-frumpy clothes of any variety). I was shocked to see even the simplest bras in the $40s, most above $70 and a shelf-bra cami topping out the list at $100.
I have to admit that even before my breasts became my son’s property, I wasn’t exactly hip to the Intimates scene. There’s never been much on me to hold or push up (not even when I was a milking mama). I was almost done with college before I realized that my silly little cotton bras were ridiculously silly little cotton bras. Call me a late bloomer that never actually bloomed.
Motherhood played right into my unsexy persona, and I lived for a long time in a black Glamourmom tank and those goofy Bravado “Original Nursing Bras.”
I had one other nicer nursing bra, but it was really too big, and if you poked me at the right spot, I’d go concave. Then, when my boy was almost two, I graduated to the Bravado “Silk Seamless Nursing Bra”, which came with removable and durable cups that stayed in at all times to ensure that no one would sink my battleships.
Until a few months ago, I was nursing enough during the day that I still chose nursing bras over regular ones for everyone’s convenience (well, except my husband. He had no privileges). A few weeks ago, when I considered that we’d be out at a friend’s party until almost bedtime, I thought ahead: my shirt needed all the shape help I could give my little little girls. I figured that will all the activity, we might be able to just stuff our son in his jammies and drive him home to sleep without him realizing he was missing his pre-bed nursing, the last one to go. But just in case, I opted for a front closure so I wouldn’t have to totally undo myself or lift the whole bra up. I think it hasn’t been since the 1990’s that I consciously chose my undergarments based on who I thought might see them. But back then, I was hoping for my guy to see the silk rather than crossing my fingers that I’d keep my shirt on and my son’s paws out.
I have a vague memory that my husband bought me some super-fancy bras way before the baby that either didn’t fit well or just seemed like too much for me to pull off. My body-image-confidence meter is even lower now. If it’s possible to lose a sense of style like you lose a good tennis serve without practice, then sign me up for beginner fashion lessons. I keep thinking that eventually we’ll be ready to try for baby #2, so why bother updating my wardrobe now? And with bra prices like those in Garnet Hill, I’m cowering with my credit card in the corner.
But, if you asked my bras, they’d tell you they were tired and sad and ready to be put out to pasture. What’s that? Someone’s hissing at me from the dresser. Oh, Underwear and Jeans, you feel the same? But it’s a recession! And any extra money should go into the house we’re buying! You say there’s no way you’ll consent to being packed up an moved? Even my husband, scared about money though he is, agrees with you?
Well, if you insist. I guess I’m going to have to find some new threads for this saggy body.
Can someone at least point me in the direction of some coupons, for bras or for self-confidence?
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