How does one go about getting gauges?

Use tapers and stretch up, leave them for roughly 3 months, and stretch again. A lot of people stretch quickly, like I did, and I'm lucky not to have blown them out, but my left ear stretches significantly slower than my right. My right accepted a 5/8ths nicely and the left wouldn't take and stretched tearing/bleeding, so I had to downsize, wait a month, baby it with oils, half-size it with a 9/16ths and wait again for a month. That's because of accumulated scarred tissue... One thing you can do is have them scalped, where a piercer would essentially cut a chunk out of your ear to the desired stretch size, and insert the jewelry. Its a quick solution but the process looks nasty as hell...I suggest going to a peircer and getting them peirced with either a 16 or 14g, letting them heal entirely, then start stretching gently with a 12g taper. Use oils like jojoba to soothe the skin and keep it nice and flexible.

Well, you're probably going to get them pierced at a 20g. If you were to stretch them, the smallest size up would be 18g. If they're pierced at a 18g, then the smallest size up would be a 16g. No one will be able to tell the difference at such a small size. You also aren't getting gauges, you're stretching your ear to a larger gauge earring.

don't get long ones get earning sized ones!!