My New Best Friend

Maternity pants.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Maternity pants are my new best friend.  Actually, make that maternity clothes in general.  But really, the pants are the best part.  I can breathe again!  Who knew?

I had really hoped to put off maternity shopping until my mom comes to visit next month.  I went through a few weeks ago and packed away whatever already didn't fit at that point (mostly stuff I used to be able to wear pre-infertility issues).  Over the past year of infertility drugs, I've gained probably about 10 pounds total, so I had some "bigger" pants and skirts that still fit through the first trimester (minus the week of really bad OHSS when all I could wear were my husband's sweatpants).  Unfortunately, over the course of last week, I seem to have outgrown the rest of my pants/skirts.  So ready or not, this weekend it was time to buy maternity stuff...

In all honesty, I was kind of freaked out about going shopping for maternity clothes the first time.  Yes, there was a part of it that was due to the ever-present worry that something will go wrong.  As in "What will I do with all that stuff if I end up losing this pregnancy???"  But mostly, I was nervous because I had NO IDEA how maternity clothes worked.  Are there sizes?  Do you wear the same size you would otherwise but with additional "stretch" around the belly?  Do you buy different things for different trimesters?  Do they even sell them by trimester?  I had no idea.  I'd never even set foot in a maternity store.  An oddly, I don't remember any of my mom-friends ever talking about their experiences in the clothes department.  For me, it was a bit like my first time shopping for a bra.  I was 9 (or 10?) and my brother and I were in Walmart with my grandparents.  And my grandma announces that she wants to buy me a bra.  And because I secretly wanted to start wearing one (some of my friends already were) I said sure.  So she and I headed over to the junior girls' section and she said to pick something out.  I panicked and grabbed the first thing I saw (a package of 3 that had tiny pink flowers on them) because I had NO IDEA how to go about buying bras.  That's how I felt walking into the maternity store...

I went with Paul.  Maybe that sounds weird to take your husband with you shopping for maternity stuff, but he's honestly one of my favorite people to go clothes shopping with.  He is really good about getting me different sizes while I'm in the fitting room and he actually enjoys picking stuff out for me.  And not going to lie, he's kind of an enabler ("Look, this comes in green and blue too - you should get all three!").  This is bad for our bank account but still fun!  Anyway, he was the next best thing to going with my mom.  I could have gone with his mom - she is very eager and tells me every time I see her to let her know when I want to go shopping.  But I was worried that with her, I'd react the same way as with my grandma and just buy the first few things I saw out of shear panic.  Taking Paul was a good choice.

We went first to an outdoor shopping mall area.  I wasn't even sure they had a maternity store there - I mostly just wanted a Jamba Juice because it was about a billion degrees out this weekend.  Turns out, they had a Destination Maternity shop right around the corner from Jamba.  Once inside, the first 5 minutes or so did not look promising.  I was overwhelmed by the choices and everything seemed to be arranged differently than any store I've ever been in (I'm sure this was not actually the case and I was just being over-dramatic).  I walked around a few displays, touched a couple of garments, and nearly fainted after catching a glimpse of some of the price tags.  I'd heard maternity clothes could be expensive but YIKES!  Thank goodness Paul was with me.

Just as I was about to suggest we leave and hit up Target instead, he waved me over to the other side of the store where there were sale racks.  And in looking at the sale racks, I realized that some of the full-priced stuff nearby was a LOT cheaper than the stuff I'd initially seen.  Apparently it was like two stores in one - a designer side and a regular side.  I'm not super into fashion and I definitely don't need designer maternity anything, so once I figured out where the line was and stuck to the "regular" side, things got a lot better.  I won't say how much we ended up spending (because I'm a little embarrassed) but let's just say my plan to pick up a couple pairs of pants for work and call it a day went out the window when I started trying on maternity shirts! 

I don't really need to wear maternity shirts just yet - I can still fit into a fair number of mine.  But what I didn't realize is that with some styles of maternity pants, you need to have a longer shirt to wear with them to cover the stretchy belly panel stuff.  I have a rather long torso as it is and am always looking for longer shirts to wear, especially to work.  Now with my mini-bump, I have noticed my good-enough-for-work shirts riding up a little in the front, which with regular pants was still okay but with maternity pants will NOT be okay.  I did try to be conscious of the fact that it is mid-July and it doesn't make sense to load up on tons of summery shirts.  However, I've always been pretty warm-blooded.  And my office at work is usually on the hotter side such that I tend to dress in layers through the fall and early winter and just strip down to a short-sleeved top at work.  So really, almost everything I bought will probably last me the whole way through (unless I get really big towards the end).  I'm not saying I won't need another shopping trip down the road to get a few more fall/winter things.  But I think I'm pretty set for now!

One last note:  I don't know if that store had trick mirrors or if it's just that maternity stuff is so much more flattering at this point than my regular clothes, but I swear I looked a LOT more pregnant than I have before.  I couldn't stop staring at my bump in the mirror!  And even at home, when I got dressed this morning (in my first all-maternity outfit) I was like "Whoa!  Baby bump!!!"  I guess it's a good thing that the news is sort of trickling around my office now, because with this thing (and these new clothes), I doubt I'd be able to fool anymore much longer!