Maternity fashion advice and recommendations

I thought I'd start a new thread so I don't bog down other threads where almost nobody needs to know this stuff (and where probably no one else cares haha.) (Sidenote: I feel very grown up starting a maternity thread on rooster, like we weren't all talking about doing MDMA in fields and losing our virginity, like, mere seconds ago.)

Anyway mums: talk to me about buying bras while pregnant because my sore boobs are a nightmare. I know I need a bigger bra because I'm still just wearing my old bras, but is it just a size thing? Should I also be looking for a certain style that will be more....idk...comfortable? Forgiving?

Also just maternity clothes in general for when I need to buy those soon-ish: am I just looking for my size now (lol as if there's such thing as anyone having one standard size in women's clothes) in maternity clothes, for the whole way through? Did you go up in sizes while pregnant?

Meanwhile, a little bit of a...vent? Head scratcher? Emma gave me ALL her old maternity clothes. Which I know absolutely was her being kind so I could use them (although almost also certainly her wanting to get rid of them, haha - her unit isn't super big.) But....we are not even remotely the same size lol. I told her that when she gave them to me - I was like, "I feel like none of this will fit because we are not remotely the same size!" but she was very, "Well, see how you go!" and, like....now I have a bunch of tiny maternity clothes in my house haha. Do super skinny people not really conceptualise the difference between them and lumpy space princesses? We are at least two sizes different on a good day. I straddle M and L for tops nowadays - I still somehow have shirts from when I was, like, 20 and probably smaller than Emma is now that fit (I truly do not understand how), so a few of her shirts might actually fit, but just looking at the maternity jeans she gave me is good for a laugh.

I didn't own lots of maternity clothes, I bought pants extenders and just wore my regular pants with those and bought a couple of maternity t-shirts from Kmart. I had to buy a dress for Matt's Nonna's funeral which I got from Seed and that was really good quality. It felt like such a waste for something that I only wrote briefly.

I feel like I just wore sports bras because they held the nipple pads in place better than regular bras did and I was very leaky.

I've been getting chafing in my groin area, similar but higher up and harder to deal with than thigh chub rub in summer, and my underwear has been feeling really uncomfortable and like it's causing the issue, so I googled it and apparently it's a really common issue during pregnancy, due to changing body shape/how your body is now "sitting", I guess. So I ducked into Big W quickly last night and there weren't many good options - boylegs aren't really long enough, I feel like they'd almost be worse? But I found Tradies brand "shorties" which are a bit longer than boylegs, and figured I'd give them a go since they were really the only option there that seemed like it might work for what I need. I'm sort of between sizes for undies atm but they only had the larger size out of the two anyway, which I figured would be best. It's too early to tell whether they've solved the issue but so far so good - and the material is SO soft and nice, they're SO comfortable and honestly I'm very into them, if they actually do fix the chafing I'll be buying many more pairs.

I feel properly chastened; we've been making fun of the Tradies ads on TV - seems like a stupid premise for a clothing brand, I have no idea why I need to think about construction workers while I pick out underwear, but whatever, yay Tradies, I'm now a big fan.

https://www.bigw.com.au/product/tradie-lady-women-s-shortie-2-pack-black-size-8/p/1202279