You met Karen when she gave us a DIY nursing bra tutorial last March.  A married mother of two (two years and seven months), she follows in the footsteps of her mother in nearly everything she does and prays that her daughter will live long enough to see the day when people’s jaws don’t drop at a G cup.

My mother is a complete DIY woman. The memories of my entire childhood are centered around crafts, craft stores, and thrift shops. It didn’t matter if it cost more money to create an item by herself, it certainly had to be a better deal than purchasing it from the store! By the time I was seven years old, she had already taught me to crochet and sew. She reserved knitting lessons until after I graduated from college, which was likely a smart decision considering the obscene amount of yarn I now have in my house.

The biggest lesson my mother taught me in all of our crafting together, was to look beyond the colors and the patterns and see the SHAPE AND CUT of clothing. I learned how the cut of a dress’s fabric could alter the way it hung and fit to a body. I learned how different shapes of patterns fit to different shapes of bodies. My mother taught me how to take ready-to-wear garments that had been tossed aside to the thrift stores and take them apart so that I could create something new from it. She always said, “Don’t worry about the color. We can change that.” I can now look at anything on the rack and see it in the color I want. However, all of my sewing lessons occurred before I grew these ginormous breasts!

My mother often said, “I don’t know where you got those things from,” as if no one else in my family was larger chested. I was getting very discouraged with the drape of clothing on my small frame, and I had no idea how to adjust sewing patterns to fit my new body. Afterall, who has their growth spurt in their freshman year of college? I went from a B cup to a G in a course of a semester! And of course, I had to swell up to a K/H cup while breastfeeding.

I could always count on my Mom, though, to pull the right shirt from the rack. She could shop for me without me even being there to try on the clothes. After Mom went shopping, I always had favorite new pieces in my wardrobe, pieces that I didn’t wish were a little longer in the front or a little higher cut or a little less stretched across the top. She always gave me the right image and made me feel better about my odd little body.

Just last week, I took my mother for her very first bra fitting at a specialty store. I couldn’t figure out how she could so easily pick clothes for me but looked so frumpy herself. The 46D wearing woman was suddenly in a 38GG! I couldn’t have been more proud. It’s true what they say about your clothes fitting you better. Then, I took her shopping for herself, and she picked out clothes 2 sizes smaller than what she had been wearing. All my mother needed was a new image of her body to pick the right pieces out!

I’ve toyed around with the idea of getting a reduction. My mother can’t always shop for me, and some of the best clothes out there won’t fit me without some serious tailoring. However, I’m now the mother of a very beautiful little girl, who might just have the same boob genes I do. I want to be a role model for her in loving her body, even if we can’t buy everything from the rack. I’m learning how to alter thrift store clothes for custom fits, right alongside my mother, and my daughter will probably need this same knowledge. I may still get a reduction, but it won’t be before she has a full understanding of what it means to be a large breasted woman!