366 days ago I visited a shop in Oakland that is famous for its nursing bra fitter, who is said to have almost psychic powers of prediction -- somehow she can tell what size you're going to be after your baby is born. So if you're still pregnant you are required to make an appointment and meet with her before you're allowed to even try on a bra, let alone buy one. I was more than two weeks from my due date, and my body was changing shape at a rapid rate -- I was dubious that anyone would be able to predict my future bra size, but I also didn't want to wait until after the baby was born to buy a bra.
I stood in the dressing room with the bra fitter, a woman in her 60s. In my memory she is French, dressed in a demure yet chic black dress, with a yellow cloth measuring tape around her neck. (But I could be wrong.) She measured me, and then asked some questions: how many weeks pregnant was I; what was my pre-pregnancy bra size; did I have any milk yet? Then she announced my post-partum bra size, and I almost snorted with disbelief. Four cup sizes larger than I had been pre-pregnancy? No way. The books on breastfeeding I had read suggested that a much smaller increase was more likely. I bought three bras in the size she had predicted, but I thought I was wasting my money.
You know what's coming, of course: she was totally right. She even got the band size right, despite my temporarily expanded rib cage due to the invasive legs of my tall baby. (She gave me some of those extra hook things to help with the fit until my ribs returned to normal.)
Here we are a year later, and I just went to Nordstrom to buy some new nursing bras to celebrate entering our second year of breastfeeding. My experience there was quite different. Tune in next time to find out how!
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