Yet Another Reason Not to Shop at Motherhood Maternity
Remember how I said I was buying hose at Motherhood Maternity when I had the bra breakdown? NEVER AGAIN. I bought a size L based on my height (5'9") and my current weight, at the advice of the "sales consultant," despite the fact that the packaging clearly stated "For best fit, select your size according to your pre-pregnancy weight." Seeing as how everyone's weight gain during pregnancy is different, selecting a hose size based on pre-pregnancy weight seemed dumb, and given that I'm near the top end of the height range, selecting a size that covered my height while putting me at the bottom end of the weight range seemed judicious. (Generally when non-pregnancy tights or hose say 5'4" - 5'10" / 110-165 lbs., they don't mean the hose will fit if you're 5'9" and 165 lbs., which is a very likely scenario. They mean that the hose will fit if you're 5'4" and 165 lbs. or 5' 10" and 110 lbs. You can't be at the top end of both the height and weight ranges if you want to get the damn things past your knees.)
Now that I've managed to get these stupid Motherhood Maternity "Firm Support" pantyhose on, I have several complaints:
- They're ORANGE. I bought a color called "Pale Nude" because I'm extremely pale, and I have to say that these things are neither pale nor nude. They're a good 10 shades darker than my skin, and a shade I've never seen on any living human, nude or otherwise.
- They're not supportive, they're just tight. The package says "with Lycra® Spandex" (27% in the leg, in fact), but unlike every other support stocking I've tried, these feel scratchy and tight rather than stretchy and smooth.
- They're poorly constructed. The effort of trying to pull them up resulted in one of the seams in the panty giving way. I now have a hole at the "gusset" and a runner reaching halfway up my belly. Well, at least it ran up rather than down.
I think I'm going to give up on the whole maternity/support hose idea and just put my feet up as much as possible. I'm not thrilled at the prospect of giving way to the varicose veins, but the trauma and expense of trying to find hose that fit are now worse than painful varicosities.