That subject I never thought I'd post about...

I'm a mom.  I've had three kids.  I've now reached the milestone of 40!  40!  What I noticed after each of my three children (sorry for this detail) was that my body changed.  I had to get new jeans after each of my children.  The funny part was that they were the same size.  But, different.  I was very thankful for garage sales!  I've talked to a lot of moms and they went through the same thing I did.  One of my friends had warned me before I had my first child that I should expect always to be one size larger than I was before having children.  In my case, she was right and I appreciated the warning.  

Over the past ten years, I've put myself second.  That's what we do as moms.  We learn to love unselfishly.  We purchase what others need first and save on ourselves where we can.  This is a good thing.  I get such joy from getting my children the things they need.  They are taken care of.  I, like many wives, go shopping for my husband's clothes.  He needs to dress a certain way for work, which has changed over the years depending on the position he's been in at work.  So, that's my family.  

Then, there's me.  It's tricky to take three kids with you to go clothes shopping.  Really tricky.  What's even trickier is to go shopping for undergarments.  Which brings to me what I learned this week and want to share delicately.

A week and a half ago, I went to the O/B for my check up and she suggested that I go to Victoria's Secret to be fitted, because she explained that many women experience pain when their bras are not fitted correctly.  Really???  I am really conservative and Victoria's Secret has a certain reputation.  I hate their advertising and message.  But...  the idea came back to me when I had 45 minutes to myself after an appointment on Tuesday (which I rarely have).  I went to the store to be fitted and I want to share a few things I learned, because I think I have a lot of friends like me who would never go there.

I'm glad I went.

I learned that I was a completely different size than I thought I was.  
I learned that when you buy a bra, you want it to be on the loosest clasp, because it will stretch out over time and you will need to tighten it up.
I learned that the fit should be tighter than I thought it should be.
I learned that loosening the straps makes more of a difference in the fit than I thought it would.

The salesgal gave me a card with the styles that fit me best and were the most comfortable.  I found three basics which ranged in price from $42-$48 each.  This was hard for me to stomach, but then I went over to the clearance area and another salesgal found two that were in those styles (with garish prints) but were only $20 each.  

I am more comfortable now.  I feel more put together.  It may sound silly, but this summer I have found the clothes I needed at garage sales.  A pair of shorts for 50 cents at one and a huge bag of clothes for $15 at another... I got several pairs of pants and capris.  Some fun shirts.  But, I needed to go to this one store and get what I needed.  

But, I wanted to share this piece of advice that I didn't know before I went.  I was talking with a friend yesterday who said she went there once years ago.  They took her address information and it's been impossible to get off the mailing list.  So, this is my advice.  1) don't agree to give them your email (although that's easy to unsubscribe to and block as spam via email).  2) Pay in cash.  Don't given them any of your address information in any form.  Because I didn't do this, I'm going to have to make sure that I get the mail and not my kids or my husband so that I can throw any catalogs that arrive away.  

It used to be that there were other stores that provided the same fitting service, but there really aren't any others anymore that I know of.  In any case, I wanted to share this post in case it might be helpful to anyone.