I received an Aerie gift card as part of my relationship with the Quality Blue community. All opinions expressed are my own.
This is one of those posts that any men in my life might want to turn around and run away from. I’m talking bras today, so if that makes you squeamish or if you think you might not be able to look at me without your eyes traveling down to assess the situation, come on back tomorrow. You’ve been warned.
OK. I’ve been saying for years now that I need to go somewhere and get fit for a bra. That may sound strange, but pregnancy and nursing and weight loss followed by more of the same (and some weight gain), does a bit of a number on the ol’ lady bits. I started out as a 36C. No complaints, aside from the fact that one side was sort of dramatically (at least in my mind) larger than the other. I thought about this more than I would have after I had a (jerk) boyfriend in college who thought it was amusing to harp on the size difference. It was not amusing.
Then I got pregnant and all bets were off. I remember being on the verge of tears in the mall one day while I was searching for bras. My size at the time was the largest size they made. The cashier told me I would have to special order them if I needed anything bigger. Panic started to take hold of me (everything was panic inducing then), until my mom cracked a joke about how they would have to make it out of circus tents.
After some more ups and downs in the chest department, I finally marched into Victoria’s Secret to get sized. The frazzled, obviously annoyed woman I spoke to literally whipped out her tape measure in the middle of the store, wrapped it around me (clothes and all) and barked a size at me. It happened to be the same size that I was wearing and less than satisfied with. Unsure of what change to make, I just kept wearing the same old, ill-fitting bras. I figured it was better than wasting money on something else that still didn’t fit right.
Then I got an email about doing a post for Aerie’s bra fitting guide and it kind of seemed like a no brainer. Not only do they have an awesome campaign promoting real beauty by using untouched photos, but, uh, it would be nice to know what bra size I should be wearing.
So, I headed on over to their website (if you click the box that says Fit Tips they’ll calculate your size for you), popped in my measurements, and tried to catch my jaw before it hit the floor.