Dressing for Pregnancy: A Little Bloated

For me there are three stages of pregnancy and they don't coincide with the trimesters:

1. Fitting comfortably in my normal clothes
2. No longer fitting comfortably in my normal clothes but not big enough for my maternity clothes
3. Big enough for my maternity clothes

The first doesn't really need addressing. It lasts for the first few weeks of pregnancy, more or less, when you haven't told anyone you're pregnant and you don't look pregnant and life is good except possibly for the part where you're puking and generally feel like trash most of the time.

But that second stage. OH that second stage! That second stage characterized the vast majority of my pregnancy with Wes and the entirety of this one so far.

When it starts you'll be all fine in your clothes in the morning but by the evening you'll be tugging uncomfortably at your waistband. And then one morning you wake up and you button your pants and think, "...ouch."

But being a smidge too big for your regular clothes puts you nowhere even near maternity clothing territory (with the exception of those wonderful pants that just have a nice small elastic band around the top that sits low on your belly. I own a couple pairs and I can wear them even when I'm not pregnant) (and yes, I just admitted to occasionally wearing maternity pants while not pregnant).

My best friends at this point are:

1. My Hanes white v-neck shirts (which I blogged about here), which are a bit looser. Also, just today I got a couple nice plain colored v-necks from H&M. They have them in the men's section in white, black, heather gray, darker gray, kelly green and blue for $5.95 apiece. They're pretty much the same as my Hanes ones but slightly nicer fabric. And I get bored of the white sometimes, so I picked up a couple colors and they're great (and still really affordable).

2. My Shade and Downeast Basics shirts. I wear them alone and under almost everything because they're quite stretchy and also longer than your typical shirt, which means they can cover up...

3. My hair ties

I make my regular jeans work for a long time past the point when I can actually button them because my beloved maternity jeans don't stay up on their own until I am quite a bit bigger. The hair-tie button extender is my #1 trick for surviving this interminable stage of pregnancy.

Loop one end of an elastic hair tie around the button of your jeans, pass the other end through the button hole, and loop it around the button as well. Then zip as much as you can. The elastic keeps your pants together but also has a bit of give as you move and sit. You do have to wear longer shirts since it looks kind of funny, but it works like a charm. Plus, it's easy to keep one on you for when you can button your jeans in the morning but aren't quite so comfy anymore in the evening.

I can't believe I'm going to post this picture but...

Ta da. My fly. Rocking a double hair tie extender. Actually, I'm now really at the point where it's probably time to just start wearing my maternity jeans full time. I think I might be big enough. You can tell that I'm straining the hair ties and the limits of my jeans here at 24 weeks.

Also, a bella band (or equivalent) would probably come in handy at this point but I always choke at the price and go back to my $2 pack of hair ties. The perk of the bella band is that it allows you to wear some of your shorter shirts since it keeps you covered (and would probably allow me to keep wearing my regular jeans past the hair tie point if I wanted). I think this month might be when I finally give in and just buy one. Plus I've heard they're really supportive, so that's nice as you get bigger.

Also, I wear my Shade and Downeast Basics shirts through my whole pregnancy. They stretched as far as I needed them to with Wes and they all returned to their normal shape just fine. Each brand has a line of maternity tops that are a bit longer in the front, which I might actually need this time (not sure why, it's like my torso got longer or something) but the regular ones kept me perfectly covered with Wes. Here's me at 30 wks with Wes in a Shade shirt:

It was a little tight, obviously, but I tended to layer anyway since it was December. And also I was thirty plus weeks pregnant and really didn't care too much. But it was long enough to cover the panel in my jeans.

And here's me today in a Downeast Basics:

Plenty long and it's still got some room for growing as well.


Alright, fellow moms. How do you survive this stage without going crazy?