Good Bra Hunting

I have a bone to pick with – well, I don't really know with whom to pick it. The baby/mother industry? Designers? Manufacturers? Whomever. The bone is this: the sorry state of affairs when it comes to nursing bras.

Here's the thing, nursing bra makers. I'm having a baby. I've spent the past 9+ months feeling unattractive in all kinds of new and exciting ways, from breaking out to watching stretch marks creep across my swollen abdomen. I've watched as my once-compact and tidy breasts have ballooned into unrecognizable mammary freak shows. This will only get worse when my body recognizes that the baby is out and they become rock hard and painful as hell and start spraying milk every which way. I know this.

So what makes you think, after all of that, the thing I want most to put on is a suntan-pantyhose colored, shapeless, poor excuse for 'lingerie' bra that screams "I am a shadow of my former, feminine self?" Frankly, my boobs are not amused.

Let me start with the fact that it is inordinately challenging to find a nursing bra with underwire. Even in my 34B days, I never imagined buying a bra without it; in fact, I don't think I've worn one since my pre-pubescent training bra days. Sagging is never a good look, so why would I want to encourage it? And why, oh why, would I choose this moment in time – when my boobs need more support than ever – to decide to forgo that added bit of oomph? It truly baffles me. The only time I can imagine wearing a non-underwire bra while nursing is while I'm sleeping (Because yes, I will be wearing a bra to bed for the next several months. These boobs are not going down without a fight.), and even then I'm on the fence.

Also, apparently these misguided bra makers think that when the babies leave our bodies, they take with them any aesthetic drive as well. I suppose they think that by the time the baby is delivered, what with the several months of beauty-killing pregnancy side effects preceding, we will have thrown our hands up in disgust and surrender. That we'll take whatever we can get, so long as it's practical. Would it kill them to add a little lace or other cuteness to these things? I have found exactly two good-looking nursing bras so far: one of them is by Elle Macpherson and, shockingly, has no underwire (et tu, Elle?) and the other is $120. I'm sorry, but if I'm going to spend that much on a bra it better be wearable for more than a few months (and no, I don't intend to wear nursing bras when I'm not actually nursing) and have a fancy, European-sounding label inside.

The few that I've found that are passable, that don't make me look like a 1920s Sears catalog model when I put them on, somehow transport my boobs into odd locations, shapes and configurations on my chest. How and why they do this, I do not know, but I do know that my particular boobs were not meant to be stretched to opposite sides of my torso or to pop out, cone-like, a la Madonna's early 1990s Jean-Paul Gaultier moment.

You know, I hate to make this into this big, symbolic issue and go all soapboxy on you, but I really do resent this thing about mothers in our society. We poke fun at how drab moms become, how they lose their sense of self when they pop out the baby. We act like it's impossible that a woman who's given birth could simultaneously care about the baby enough to jump in front of a moving train for it and also happen to care that her hair is brushed, mascara applied and she's outfitted in something flattering. Witness the Saturday Night Live commercial parody hawking mom jeans. It's all very simple-minded and I think is a movement led by the same people who suggest that philanderers like Tiger Woods are biologically incapable of monogamy (don't even get me started on him).

I think these same people are getting messages to the bra makers, because they're making awful bras, and have I mentioned how unhappy this makes me? And please, oh please, do not use the "time" excuse for this. I've been told in many different ways now how little time I will have once my baby is here, how little time for showering and dressing and grooming and generally doing anything for myself – and how that won't even bother me. (I found this patronizing while going through infertility and I still find it patronizing now – another topic for another time.) I get that having another person to look after will take time. I know I'll be sleep deprived and covered in milk and spitup and generally feel pretty unlike myself. But it takes the same amount of time to put on an ugly bra as it would one that had a flattering fit, kept my boobs off my knees and looked pretty. After all, is there ever a time when a woman needs a little pretty in her life more?

PS If you've found something I've missed, do tell.

Counting Down

So here we are, one year later than – yet light years from – last year, when I rang out 2008 with a New Year's Eve D&E (because, really, who needs champagne when you can have Ver*sed?) to finally put an end (or so I thought) to the never-ending miscarriage. As I sat on the couch recovering that first day of 2009, mostly relieved to end the physical part of the process, I wished and prayed with all my will that this year would be different. And miraculously, it is. I am so absurdly grateful.

I've been hanging in there, these weeks of bed rest, and somehow the days have begun to fly by in rapid succession. Truly, bed rest is still not what you would imagine when you're running from one responsibility to the next and think a few weeks on the couch sound like a small slice of heaven. But of course you recognize, deeply, that there are worse positions in which you might find yourself as well. I mean yes, I have all those nesting urges and would like to be doing more to get organized and prepared for this baby. But it's also oddly liberating to accept that all that stuff will come, later. That for now I have little choice but to do a whole lot of nothing.

Had my 36-week appointment Wednesday, including nonstress and group B strep tests. While she was in there she checked my cervix (long and closed). Let me just throw my complaints in the ring when it comes to cervical checks. Because they really hurt. I'm sorry, but there's just no way to lie there and act normal when it's happening. I try not to writhe in pain or make noises or swear but it requires my full concentration. But this one was worth it because she thinks (the only way to know for sure will be through Monday's ultrasound) she felt the top of the baby's head while doing it. Which means all my attempts to contort my big-bellied self into child's pose and play music down near my pelvis (yes, I am a sucker for trying anything on this front) may have been successful. Here's hoping.

Either way, the countdown to 2010 is over and the countdown to baby is on. We're in the year and month of this baby's birth now, and it's beginning to feel real. We put him in there and now he has to come out, one way or another. I still can't begin to imagine how it will feel to look at this baby and know that he's mine.

Anyway, here I am – I've posted a photo, taken on Christmas Eve with my Christmas present, a digital SLR camera. I used to think that I would never do the photo thing, but I'm getting to the point now where I want to squeeze out everything that's left of this pregnancy. I want to remember how it feels, how it looks. It may be the one and only time I'm this pregnant, and I want to hold onto it. (Be gentle with any thoughts on my rotundness, please!)

Wherever you are in your quest for parenthood, may all of your wishes come true in this new year.