Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'll pick up a pair of Assets for a trial run, and hint to my man for the real Spanx for my birthday since it seems the Assets will fall apart by then.
Photochick, I'm wearing a 14 in jeans and they are loose. Not crazy obscenely loose but a bit loose as if I'm almost ready to go down a size. I've always had a shape, even when thin. I was not very chesty, but had hips. Now that I'm bigger, I have bigger hips and a bigger chest (the bigger chest part is the good part! yay!) I bought this one junior shirt a while back which will probably never fit me even when I get to goal weight, based on what you said. It doesn't have much room in the chest department or hip department. I'll have to count that shirt as a loss.

(It was adorable. A lot of juniors stuff is very immature but I have found some really nice looking stuff as well!) The dress though, for some reason has room in the top (it even looks like it's made for busty chicks!) and gently flares out a bit to accomodate for hips. I didn't even realize it was a juniors dress at all until I posted here about its size and everyone told me it was a juniors size.
I hope it will fit. Of course, I won't know for sure how it will fit until then, you are exactly right- it's hard to say. I do hope so, though. Failing that, I'll go get a nice outfit for Christmas that will fit my more adult like proportions.
Thank you for explaining the size thing. It all confuses me to no end. Now I've got a better idea of it.
