So this anxiety dates way back to at least middle school when my clothes brought some unwanted teasing from my peers. Before age 11 I basically wore stuff to keep covered and warm, if I needed a shirt, I wore a shirt, I had no reason to care what was on the shirt or how the shirt fit. Suddenly after being teased about my lack of style or care for my clothing and some extreme pressure from people to "try to fit in, goddamn it Andrea, we are sick of you coming to the office with bullying complaints," I tried to *care* about what I wore.
And I failed. In stead, mostly on my own, I learned to not care what others thought of me, which is what the damn school counselors should have told me in the first place. It was a SLOW process, one that is still taking shape as I stand firm in my political and parenting beliefs and try to not take crap from people who don't agree with me. Luckily I have found some allies. Its hard being the only one.
Every once in a while in high school and college I would feel like I found a style of wardrobe, but mostly jeans and sweaters and tees were good enough. Eventually I did find a love for skirts in the summer, figured out exactly which shoes I would actually wear, and made less bad purchases.
Then I got pregnant. And I HATED maternity wear. You know what maternity wear was for me? It was basically, "doesn't fit your ass or boobs wear." Apparently maternity wear makers don't fit people like me, I found one pair of capris that would stay up. Maternity pants were basically a joke, I did better wearing my pre-pregnancy pants with a Bella Band, but that was still not so great. I was previously excited about cute maternity tops that fit below the breasts and accentuate your growing belly, but I found that anything "cute" wasn't cut big enough in the breasts to fit me properly (I got up to a 40DD during pregnancy). And often tops that fit my shoulders wouldn't make it all the way over my boobs and belly. I was simply bigger in the boobs and belly than my frame was telling the clothing manufacturers I was.
The one thing that did usually work were the maternity dresses. Next time around I'm skipping pants all together, maternity pants were just not meant for me. I never bought maternity underwear and I'm still confused about it, I did, however, stretch all my underwear out, so I'm definitely going to buy a few pairs of larger underwear next time. You get bigger, but your belly really doesn't effect the underwear area, I'm convinced that maternity underwear is a scam.
So that was my crazy maternity wear experience.
Then I gave birth. And I SHRANK! Holy crap did I shrink. They told me to buy nursing bras in my 8th month of pregnancy... so WRONG. I bought a couple 40DD nursing bras that were way too loose on me by 2 or 3 months post partum. I say don't even worry about wearing a bra until you are 3 months post partum, then go bra shopping at that point. Or get cheap "sport" bras from target that actually don't have enough support for sport. I pretty much wore only those for the first year of my son's life. I hated dealing with the clasp on the nursing bra anyway and often didn't even use it, just slipped my boob out when needed. Personally, I think nursing bras could be skipped, though do stay away from under wire bras, which can lower milk supply. Nursing bras are definitely NOT a must have; which I wish someone would have told me while I was pregnant, because I stressed about it too much, having some interesting experiences in changing rooms while very emotional.
And don't even get me started on nursing tops, just skip them, they are stupid and you won't even use them properly, you'll just yank them up to get the baby food ASAP.
So there you have it, a woman who loves breastfeeding but who hates the stupid nursing bras and tops.
Then I kept shrinking, ending up at a size 8 (10 in most dresses), when before pregnancy I was a size 12. This also means that I went from a size large shirt to a size medium, which was the first time I had the experience of my tops being too roomy (big boobs since age 18 or so). There are only a handful of things that really fit me properly from my pre-pregnancy days.
I really am starting over. And this is causing me too much stress. I did buy some tee-shirts this summer, and a few pairs of pants that fit right and a few other things, but really I need more. All of my sweaters are dumpy on me now. I have one skirt that fits, no casual dresses, one pair of shorts, one pair of capris. And I really only have one good fitting bra.
I'm also probably going to get pregnant again in the next 6-12 months, and then who knows where my body will be when I stop losing weight from breastfeeding that baby. And what will happen when I'm all done with breastfeeding forever? I'll probably be in my mid thirties and maybe my metabolism will slow down more and I'll gain some weight back. I guess I can just buy more clothes if this all happens. I need to not worry so much about the future shape of my body and I should work on fitting clothes for the shape of me now.
So what to buy? I want to keep it minimal, but I want enough, and I want the pieces to be inter-changeable, but still look nice and be able to be dressed up or down. Part of me is excited too, but I feel this freeze response kicking in and I'm wondering if I'll be able to actually go shop and spend.
My plan is to make a list of items I need and then to just get it done, once this winter and once this spring, BAM, new wardrobe. The list will be a little hard for me. My plan is to look nicer with less clothes, not an easy feat. But I think I'm finally willing to spend a bit more for quality items. I may hide a few rattier items in the basement for while the next baby is spitting up a lot (don't wear nice clothes while you have an infant). But I'm still unwilling to do dry cleaning, so I have to avoid that.
Alright I'll keep you posted!
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