A few too many words on maternity clothing, pt. 1

It’s week 25. I haven’t been able to wear my normal jeans since I think week 13 or 14, and any top without generous stretching ability is out. I still wear primarily pre-pregnancy or non-maternity clothing, though often in combination with a maternity item (for instance maternity pants are essential at this point). 

I’ve assembled my maternity wardrobe from mostly non maternity items. This can be done poorly–for example you buy a bunch of items simply a size up to start wearing at month 4 and by month 5 or 6 these clothes are worthless. But I, of course, am a genius, and I predict maximum use from my non-maternity clothing bought for maternity purposes. Babydaddy and I did a run on H&M and Target, where we discovered that in fact, the entire female half of the population is currently pregnant. Tons of dresses and blouses that were high waisted or tented in the stomach. A bunch of dresses that are gathered at the neck and bit at the bottom but otherwise fits you like a shic burlap sack. Sweaters fall down to the knees and are ten times larger than the size on their tags. Sweater dresses are the bomb. The midwest offers elastic waste band skirts aplenty.

That said, I had to buy some tops, bottoms, and most annoyingly, a winter coat from maternity sites and stores.

I want to be clear about this–NOTHING IS WORSE THAN SHOPPING IN AN EXCLUSIVELY MATERNITY CLOTHING STORE.

Okay…VERY LITTLE is worse might be more accurate. First of all, the name of the store I had to go to: “Motherhood Maternity.” What is that? Are you effing kidding me? Motherhood Maternity? Let’s pop over to Market Grocery on the way home, I forgot that we’re out of dairy milk. Barf. 

There are two of these abominations in my city. One is inside the “sad mall”–the smaller (yet still overrun with mall rats) of our two main malls, with the trashier stores (like Charlotte Rouse) and basic department stores (JC Penny and Sears) but little to offer. So to get to this one, one must brave the mall. But the other branch is somehow even sadder because it isn’t even IN the mall (the “good mall” on the other side of town with slightly more tolerable stores like H&M), but in a shitty strip-mall extension thing across the street.

Lucky for me I’ve been to both. I ventured into the inside-the-mall Motherhood Maternity just once. And I will never go back. I walked in, was immediately bombarded with questions from the sales clerk, shocked by the absolutely abysmal clothing, and overwhelmed by the mommy-centric ads for things like Parenting Magazine and Baby Bullshit Monthly that seemed to be popping out from behind every pink jersey-knit monstrosity. I didn’t even make it to the back of the store, and I left without buying anything.

But at that point, I didn’t NEED this terrible clothing. But I started to need it. Particularly, as it has dropped into the 20s this week, I needed a jacket. And the small maternity sections in mainstream clothing stores don’t stock coats for people who actually need to go outside. Maternity “jackets” I’ve found are thin, 3/4 sleeve cutesie blazer type deals that will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING against the -10 windchill 100s of inches of snow monster of a winter my city goes through. 

Is this where the term “time of confinement” comes from? Are pregnant women not supposed to see the light of day past a certain point? 

Speaking of, I need to rush off to my second job, so I’ll just slip into my giant maternity parka that put me out 50 bucks (so not so bad, I guess, it was on sale) and jam my expanding ass into the front seat of the sensible liberal academic white person family car that we bought when we decided not to terminate this pregnancy (a Subaru wagon). To be continued.

Oh–but PS: I’ll throw in a picture of me seriously taxing a pre-pregnancy shirt that I finally had to retire on Monday, after I literally popped a button off of it. I think this picture dates from last week, maybe the week before.