Thar She Blows

It's getting to be the time of year most women with a healthy self-esteem loathe.

Bathing suit season.

I live in Atlanta; bathing suit season starts tomorrow. And as you may have surmised from reading a few posts...I'm pregnant. Can you imagine how much I'm looking forward to this?

There are a few cruel jokes played on pregnant women:

1. Swimming (or standing in water like an overgrown hippopotamus) is probably the best relief for a hot, sweaty pregnant woman carrying an extra [undisclosed] amount of weight on her frame


2. Swimming, in most places, requires one wear a bathing suit or else be arrested for indecent exposure and cruel and unusual punishment to all of humanity


3. Pregnancy hormones and pre-natal vitamins give your hair super-growth ability--yes, all your hair


4. When one is 7.5 months pregnant, one cannot see certain areas that might need some attention prior to wearing a bathing suit


5. Maternity bathing suit manufacturers are pure evil spawned from the copulation of Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung

One of my besties, Julie, and I spend roughly 800 hours a day on IM together. We're bonded through the same lack of desire to do our jobs, tendency to be distracted by anything and ability to turn even the simplest tasks into an epic journey of insurmountable obstacles and heroic feats of endurance.

While on her own monumental search for a bathing suit, Julie decided she would start looking for one for me as well. After being discouraged by the cruel jokes bathing suit makers play on all women (hello, Brazilian bikini) and the ever unhelpful tips from fashion magazines (sure, that style is great for the big hipped woman, but what about the big boobs, short torso, medium height, no butt, enormous hipped woman???), she decided to bring me into the hellhole of bathing suit shopping.

Julie is so off the Christmas card list.

I knew this was going to go nowhere fast when the conversation started like so:

Julie: OK. Give me your measurements: chest, waist and hips.

Jen: You're kidding, right? I can't fit a measuring tape around my chest, I haven't seen my waist in a month and my hips are spreading by feet each day.

Julie: Here's one. It's black, slimming and has good coverage.

Jen: You're telling me I need to wear a full outfit to go swimming in order to make people not puke when I show up.

Julie: (Undeterred by my attitude) No worries. Here's one. Cute design, a little sassy, but still has good coverage.

Jen: Um...that will not work with the 38DDs I'm sporting these days. Actually that was the measurement a few months ago. I can't even bear to know the size now.

Julie: OK. Now we're getting somewhere.

Jen: We are?

This goes back and forth for awhile and we find a few cute styles. But then, oh then Interwebs, we had to go the sizing charts.

These things are beyond idiotic. My pre-pregnancy size is apparently considered an XL. Really? I live in the South. I know what XL is. It is not me. And I'm pretty sure I'm not just living in a delusional dream. *deep breath* I was a size 10-12. Not petite, but certainly not an XL.

But it gets better.

Do you have any idea what size my boobs are considered on these charts? PLUS-SIZED 2X.

Plus-sized.

And that's when I was done swimsuit shopping.

A few tips to the maternity bathing suit manufacturers of the world:

• If it looks like it can double as a tennis outfit, circus tent or nightgown from the 60s, then it should not be made into a bathing suit


• Under no circumstances should a bathing suit have horizontal stripes. Ever.


• All 2-piece bathing suits need to be sold as separates--my boobs exploded three sizes while the rest of me is growing along at whatever normal pregnancy growth rates are


• PLEASE. For the love of all that is holy. Do not add insult to injury by making sizes common for women--particularly pregnant woman--hell, for ANY woman--a PLUS SIZE. I'm having enough body image issues without your input.

I hate everyone.