Hows Your Underwear?

Hows your underwear doing?  Or is that too personal a question?

• Does it fit?  Or do you have a case of the baggy pants or too tight VPL and an extra pair of boobies hanging out of the bra?
• Would you be happy to be caught unawares by an unplanned hospital visit?  Or is it a bit skanky, tired, lost all sign of it’s original colour, with threads hanging off?

I’m in the middle of a major overhaul of my life, and house (hence been a little quiet), and the most recent has been the knicker and bra drawer.  The knickers got over worn during my pregnancy and were those extremely dull maternity ones.  I realised how dire the situation was, when recently I’ve had some extra help around the house, which sometimes entailed taking the dry washing off the line.  I suddenly realised with horror, that my underwear was not up to any kind of outside scrutiny and was a big embarrassment.  I pictured them going home to their families saying ‘you’ll never guess how bad her knickers are!’.

Now I’m not going to be sitting on my death bed thinking about unworn lingerie options.  But I might look back and wish that I had appreciated myself a little more.  I certainly feel perky when popping on my new knickers.

So hows yours?  Don’t wait until an embarrassing situation to be pushed into giving your underwear drawer a little spruce up.  It might not get seen very much, but how much care you take over the closest garments to your skin, gives a clear sign of how much care you are taking of yourself.  I know us Mums tend to go for practical, but even practical can be pretty!  Plus it could help that much illusive intimacy thing, that those of us with young kids are often worrying about rediscovering.  There appears to be loads of sales around at the moment, so a bag of pretty knickers wont break the bank.

Then comes the even worse case of the bra!  My nursing bra’s were left over from long-term breast-feeding with my son and had definitely seen much better days.  I should have bought new ones then, but I just never knew how long I was going to feed for, I just ended up much more successful at it than I had planned, for a lot longer than I had expected.  So off I popped to Marks and Spencers (mainly because they are close, and my 4month old hates the car).  I was relieved to find that they do fittings and have a choice of nursing bra’s; so whilst a kind shop assistant tried to keep my little girl sleeping by rocking the pram, another lady shepherded me and my boy into a changing room.  ’36’ she said as she measured me.  ‘Oooh, that’s fab’, I said, I thought I might have put on more weight.  “But I don’t think that this bra fits though?” I said perplexed.  “Noooo madam”, said the assistant, with that ‘oh my god, how come are so many women so blatantly unaware, but I’m going to be patient’ kind of tone of voice.  “Really, so I’m not a C cup anymore” I said?  (I was always very proud of my growth from a B to a C cup due to breastfeeding my boy, I’m one of the lucky ones who keeps it afterwards).  “No, your an E” she said.  “WOW”!!!  So I’m now the proud owner of two 36E bras, breastfeeding rocks!!!  (Ok I know I’m meant to concentrate on all the wonderous blah, blah, blah things about breastfeeding; but my head is just concentrating on WOW).  So learn from my mistake and get yourself measured.  Your boobies will feel appreciated, and mine look a hell of a lot better in a bra that fits.

I have one complaint though.  I then went off online to get another couple of bra’s as M&S only had one pack of two that I liked.  Apparently 36E is difficult to find, and loads of the websites don’t have a useful option to limit your search straight away, so it takes ages to find ones you like and then see if they have the size.  Now apart from the obvious ones like figleaves and bravissimo, the websites were awful and a lot of the choice was just plain old frumpy.  No wonder my originals were frankly unimaginative.  So to maternity/nursing websites out there, here is a little plea.  Remember we are women, and we generally feel better when we are dressed as such, rather than as plain old frumps.  Plus, we are knackered, and frazzled, so your website with small text, rubbish pictures, and terrible search options will put us off immediately!

Right I’m off to admire my breasts.  Cross your fingers for me that I keep them this time as well!