Attack of the 38Ds

Okay, I admit to being ill informed about the symptoms coming so soon. We’ve taken to reading literature on pregnancy together at night and it looks more and more like Katrina is textbook. Unfortunately, all the nasty side effects that they say might happen, ALL happen to Katrina. One that you’d think I’d enjoy, is the breast enlargement. Six weeks in now and Katrina has gone up a whole cup size. To quote Robin, “the Titty Fairy has arrived.”

So it was time to go bra shopping. Me being the all involved husband, I got to go too! I saw Katrina on the computer looking at a New York Magazine website for maternity stores. Before this site tells us we’re going to Saks I thought I’d better interject with a little creative Googling. Turns out, there were two perfectly good maternity stores in our neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn! Great, I thought, who wants to traipse around Manhattan when it’s 95 degrees out.

We drive over there and realize it’s the Hassidic section. Okay, no problem, I thought. Katrina was already wishing she wasn’t wearing a wife-beater (aka men’s tank top) with a pink bra and a short skirt. When we pull onto Lee Avenue we see a small boy of no more than 3 years with his blankie, sitting outside a 2nd story closed window inside a cube-shaped box of security bars that was meant to hold an air conditioner in place. A ghetto playpen, I thought. There was a good two feet between the window and the bars. Katrina had to be talked down from calling child services.

We get out of the car, plunk a quarter in the meter (it’s a Sunday, but the City is making up for the missing income from the Saturday Sabbath when quarters aren’t required), Katrina makes sure I’m holding her hand so everyone knows we’re married. We literally are the only ones not wearing heavy black clothing. Katrina notices a baby in a carriage with no parents around and gets more nervous. I tell not to worry, that everyone looks out for one another here. Turns out, there’s even a guy who puts quarters in the meters when the cops come. 25 cents to a $55 ticket is a 22,000% increase afterall. For some reason, most of the stores have a “No Baby Carriages” sign in their windows.

The first store we go to is closed….well maybe it was. But it involved going down into a creepy hallway under the stairs of a building and it wasn’t a place that Katrina wanted to take her clothes off in. So we walk to the next one we saw on the web. D’OH! They don’t sell bras. At this point I’m wondering, do Hassidics even wear bras? We get referred to a lingerie store. Makes sense, seeing as how we just need bigger and more comfortable, not necessarily ones with nursing flaps on them – which as it turns out, is super hot. Down boy! I decide it’s best that I don’t enter the lingerie store as we’re getting enough eyes as it is. I instead go next door and buy whitefish salad because, well, why not? I’m in the right neighborhood for it.

As Katrina puts it, there were 30 women shopping in the store but she had 3 women helping her. One can only assume they wanted her to make her purchase quickly. Since it’s against the store’s rules to try on the bras, she gets measured. 38C borderline D, the helper says. “Holy Cow!” Katrina exclaims. The woman helping her (who is holding a baby at the same time) says, “Did you just call yourself a cow? I’m a C and I don’t think I’m a cow!” Katrina assures them it’s just an expression, like Wow. Ahhh, cultural barriers and bra shopping. After insisting on exact change of $20.50, we had to make the trek to the island.

Manhattan Maternity Works on 57th Street. Nursing bras, sleeping bras, combination bras, padded, underwire – this place was Booby Mecca. And changing rooms, thank God! Oooh and “Preggie Pops” (which are lollipops for morning sickness) where have you been all our 6 weeks! Hey look, a Hassidic couple. I guess they didn’t have much luck in Williamsburg either. At one point when I’m handing Katrina one of the many bras through the door, a tan colored one, the kind you saw in your mother's drawer as a kid:

“Ugh, this looks like something a mom would wear,” she groans.
“Well you’re going to be a mom,” I reply.
“Yeah, but I don’t wanna look like one!” she retorts.

There was logic there.