Searching... searching... searching... I KNOW I own something that
will fit over this big belly. I KNOW I do!! But where is it?!
Pulling out piece after piece of clothing from my closet, I finally
pull out a dress that I am SURE will fit. Throwing it on the bed and
wading through the piles of size 8/medium shorts and shirts, I
quietly mumble... "This had better fit."
Unbuttoning the dress and slipping it on past my feet, versus my
head, I suddenly realize there is NO WAY IN HELL it is going past my
stomach AKA big belly AKA BABY.
"Why me?"
As someone who has never owned many brand name clothes or anything
truly expensive, this shouldn't bother me right? Well, although I
may not own 'great' pieces of non-maternity wear, I do value how I
look and love all of my clothes. Being pregnant with a huge tummy
just was a little depressing when it came to getting dressed every
morning.
By the time I was 2 1/2 months pregnant, even though it was my FIRST
pregnancy, I was wearing maternity clothes. When I found out I was
pregnant I had every intention to not gain more than 20 pounds and
to wear MY clothes until I was at least 6 months along. Boy was I
fooled!! When my belly began to grow and grow (and grow and grow and
grow...) I realized pretty quick that I was no longer fitting into
my size 8's for at least another 8 to 9 months. (Okay, so let's try
a full 12 months... sigh...)
On to the stores to buy maternity clothes. A great excuse to buy
MORE clothing! What a wonderful idea!! Wrong again...
Do clothing manufacturers really think that pregnant women are 70 or
80 years old? The last time I heard about a woman this age being
pregnant was either in a fairy tale or in the Guiness Book of World
Records. Pregnant women are TWENTY or THIRTY or FORTY. Not 3 or 4
times that number!!
Every rack that I visited in every store, had these huge looking
flowery printed shirts and rather ugly colored shorts to match. Why?
Why do the stores torture us like this? Being pregnant is hard
enough on the body. Why do the clothes need to make you feel EVEN
LESS of a person?!
Eventually I had to make a purchase. I could not go on wearing tight
jeans and tight shirts. I had to find SOMETHING to wear that was 1.
comfortable, 2. inexpensive (after all, you are only pregnant for 9
months!!) and 3. NOT UGLY! Number 1. comfortable, I could find. But
trying to find Number 2. and 3., along with Number 1., well... that
was a joke.
I settled on a few shirts that my belly would grow into. HA! I would
never fill out this shirt. It's too big! Wrong, yet again. These
shorts? HA! My butt will NEVER be THAT big! Was pregnancy not only
making my stomach bigger but my brain smaller?! I kept guessing
very, very wrong.
Searching in many stores for maternity clothes I found a few stores
were more helpful than others. Target carried a decent collection at
not too bad a price. The shirts were cute, and the overalls were
too. But, warning, the overalls DID NOT fit all summer. My tummy got
tooooooooo big!
Motherhood is another great store. There is not one locally for me,
so I travelled to one in another city. It was well worth it. They
carried a great selection of jeans, shirts, shorts, etc. The prices
are great and the fabrics are NOT all funky.
Even more depressing, was the day that I woke up (granted, I was in
LATE pregnancy) and I couldn't fit into any maternity clothes! No
kidding! My 20 pound maximum had turned into 30.... eeerrr, we'll
just call it 30 something... And my butt had outgrown too many
things that fit just the day before. I was forced to wear a dress
that I purchased at a yard sale (yet another great place to find
maternity clothing!!) that I swore I wouldn't wear very often. It
was kind of funky. Small flowers, and it was a LARGE! GASP!!! I
never will wear a large! So for about a week, I wore this same
dress, hoping not to sweat too much because I didn't want to be too
smelly! And even wore this dress the day I went into labor with my
son. Yes, there really is an ending to pregnancy.... Thank goodness
for that. Because if there's anything that drives a pregnant woman
crazy, it's maternity clothes.
Amanda Sykora is a full time mother to two boys, part time writer of
many subjects, and all the time webmaster of HerDailyDose.com. Visit
http://www.herdailydose.com
for more articles written by her.
