The reason it's taking me so long to track down a new bra is threefold:
1. With Jester, I outgrew all my usual bras, but I refused to buy new ones because it looked very much like the pregnancy was going to go south at any moment. Which it did, eventually, but not until after I'd ruined a couple of my usual bras through over-stretching. A month or so after the D&C I bought a new bra in replacement, but hat tip to anyone who has just had a D&C - it's going to take longer than a month to get back to your usual bra size. Because of this, I now have one bra that more or less fits.
2. As a long-time backpacker, I'm well trained at daily hand-washing.
3. The stickler - after scouring the shops, and finally the Singaporean expat message boards, it has become clear to me that my only real hope lies behind the dank and forboding doors of a maternity shop. Although I hear they're a lot less dank these days.
Earlier in the week, my mother sent me an email. She admits an itching desire to get started on some grandmotherly knitting, but she can't bring herself to, "in case it jinxes things". This, and my reluctance to step over the threshold of a maternity shop, sound distinctly like magical thinking. "Go on, tell me we're not being rational," I said to Mr Bea.
"But you are," he replied. "Knitting those booties or buying that bra represents an extra investment in the process, which means if things go wrong, in a very real sense you'll have more to lose. It's perfectly rational to want to minimise that investment in any way you can, no matter how small. The only real mistake is in assigning these acts with some sort of causal power. The rest is just simple lack of perspective. After a couple of years of tests, injections, procedures - well, you know the rest - the added investment of a fifteen-dollar bra isn't exactly going to break the emotional bank."
"Fifteen dollar?"
"Well I don't know how much these things cost."
"Clearly."
In the aftermath of this conversation, I remembered the start of my blog. I didn't call it "Infertile Fantasies" to draw hits from people looking for internet porn, although that has been one effect. "Infertile Fantasies" was the title that seemed to fit late one night back in April 2006, as I wearily tried to stave off a series of nightmares I'd come to call "The Baby Death Dreams".
Riding the powerful, downward loop of the hormone rollercoaster after IVF/ICSI#1 and OHSS, I had started waking two or three times a week in a sweat, having just been through a dream-miscarriage, or buried a dream-child after leukaemia, or watched my dream-toddler seizure to death at the scene of a road traffic accident whilst blood poured from orifices whence blood should not come. In desperation that night in April, I turned to Mr Bea and asked him to daydream more pleasant things with me. "I want to talk about our maybe-January baby," I said. But he wouldn't, and he flatly refused.
"There's no point thinking about things that might never happen," was his view, and after establishing that I wasn't going to persuade him differently, I got up, opened a blog, and published this post.
Hope is such a precious resource. I guess, at the time, Mr Bea just couldn't afford to invest. But if we invest none, we will see no returns, so I want to thank you all for stepping up and lending me enough to get through until now.
Because for one thing, if Monday's scan goes ok, I'm really going to have to walk into that maternity shop for that bra.
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I am hoping for a perfectly wonderful scan on Monday. A scan full of happy heartbeats and wriggly fetus.
I said it on the internet so it must be true.
Mama recommends the Leopard-print W.onde.r B.r.a, but you know that. :)
Best of luck on the scan (The LMN household continues to keep you in their hearts and prayers. Even the cats).
best of everything for the scan on Monday. i'm hoping for a fancy new bra for bea!
it's so . . . well, i don't really know what, but it's something that we all hold so much back....be it due to the power of magical thinking, investments or whatever. i know i've done it in so many ways. i can't even tell anymore if it's simply sensible or honestly just sad.
Best of luck for the scan on Monday.Things are always crossed for you but I have a very good feeling.
Hope, love it and/or hate it !
I am holding onto every bit for you. Good luck on the hunt.
One word SPORTS BRA! I too had the same problem with making anymore maternity purchases once I was pg! I bought tons of stuff when I was between cycles and when I thought it was going to happen "any month now!" HAHA! I didn't buy any of my nursing bras until I was past my 1st trimester. So consequently I will need to purchase all new bras status post pg!! OH well, hubs can have fun in Vic Sec shopping for me!! Lots of (((huggs))) and I am praying for you.
A
Here's hoping that you need to buy rather a lot of bras soon :)
J
Another option is checking out eBay... I chose to wear nursing bras just because it seemed a more reasonable investment... I wore them day and night the first few months of breastfeeding (to avoid leaking), so I needed a few. I actually just bought another 2 when I was in the US, but for some reason I've actually shrunk back to a B and they're a little big...
Mr. Bea is right (and obviously a very clever person) but it is also magical thinking because right now you're not buying something that you already need NOW.
Good luck & enjoy the maternity shop :-)
Danish women don't seem to be that big either but luckily I have a couple of post last D&C bras and picked up a couple of slightly bigger ones in London a few weeks ago.
I'm sooo not ready for the maternity shop step.
One of the greatest things about IF blogging is the hope we all lend each other when we can find our own.
Good Luck Monday!
I too have well wishes for Monday. I'm hoping soon you will be sporting a whole lotta new bras in the near future!
Mr. Bea was on to something there too. What a smart fella.
It's funny what bra-shopping represents in this, no?
You know, of course, that I have such high hopes for you. Because of that, I fully expect an account of your bra searching on Tuesday morning.
xxx
I am hoping for a lot of bra shopping in your very near future!!!!
My thoughts are with you for the scan...and hoping that you can march in there and buy the bra!
I wish you many more months of new, big bras. (And if you can find them at 15$ do let us know!)
(Also: dang hormones have left me in tears after your post. It's amazing how I wish and hope for others as much as I do for myself.)
Ummm. $15 bras, huh?
Here's hoping you have cause for a serious bra shopping spree on Monday!
Dammit I hope you eventually have to have the bra's custom fit!!!
Wishing you lots of maternity shopping in the future Bea.
Just buy it. Your placenta won't know how much you spend, and neither will the fetus. Take care! ;)
I'm glad you came back to the title; revealed the full story.
And buy the bra. Because you need it. Not because of the pregnancy, but because it is a need just as you need to eat tonight or you need shampoo. I know, I know, it's different. But it's just shifting the way you view it.
I'll invest lots of hope in your scan and this pregnancy FOR you, Bea. Because I can totally get that you can't always on your own.
Thinking of you lots and lots and checking your blog much too much! :)
(Dude, the fifteen dollar bra bit actually made me laugh out loud.)
I'm here with lots and lots of hope for a fabulous scan on Monday. Thanks for sharing the title story.
Just curious, how much do other things cost in Mr Bea's world and how can I move there?
Hope is a precious resource, Mr. Bea is right there. But it's an awfully bleak world without it. Despite what you may or may not think about hope or magical thinking, I will agree with others that buying yourself a bra isn't the same as knitting booties. It's something you need now! The moment you buy that bra, it's going to be put to use.
Still I understand your reluctance. It's admitting, "This pregnancy has changed my body. This pregnancy is really happening." It is.
good luck!
Crossing my fingers for that scan on Monday - and make the bra-buying a big celebration! :)
That's a really well-put-together post. Your husband's thoughts on it too. Wow.
Here's hoping you are finally off to buy that bra:-)
I can completely appreciate the poignant symbolism here. I hope that the old bra has held you over since my comment is coming on the top of you Monday scan and I'm trusting (and hoping) that following your scan your first activity will be some lingerie shopping. All the best, PJ
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