Torture Device

I apologize ahead of time to any male readers I have (including my dad) as I will be complaining about bras today.

I have to say I've had relatively few complaints througout this pregnancy.  Even as I approach the last 7 weeks I'm still feeling really good.  Minus some back pain and heart burn that come and go in intensity I've had few of the other problems women complain about (knock on wood...).  I evaded the initial morning sickness common for a lot of women, I have avoided swelling, itchy skin, headaches, round ligament pains, painful rib kicks.... and I'm still sleeping pretty well!  Overall I feel more or less normal, just big!

But one thing that has really been getting to me, that I haven't heard a lot of pregnant women complain about, is my bra!  My bras have turned into torture devices it seems!  No matter what I do I just want to rip it off immediately after putting one on.

I have tried getting a larger size.... it's not the cup size that's irritating me, it's the band.  Even on the loosest setting though (and feeling like it's going to fly off) my skin underneath still gets irritated.  I've tried sports bras, bras with no underwire, loose bras, tight bras, cotton bras, even just tank tops with built-in bras...they all hurt!  It almost feels like the skin underneath is sunburnt... not bruised, or chaffed, but sunburnt.  In fact, even a shirt just rubbing on the skin hurts. And yes, I've been using tons of lotion on that area too!

All I want to do is go braless for a day or two.... maybe to let my skin recover from whatever happened, but they say one of the best ways to prevent "them" from sagging later on is to wear a good supportive bra  throughout pregnancy (even to bed!).  I don't know that I really want to go unsupported for a few days...

I have to admit that if this is my biggest complaint then things are going pretty well! :)  I know that these last few weeks are supposed to be the hardest, so I am cautiously approaching them being thankful for things being easy so far.... we're at 33 weeks, only 7 weeks left!

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. (The pressure on the head during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a conehead-like appearance.) These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.