It’s Futile to Resist: Maternity Clothes are like Ugg Boots, Both Homely and Seductive
What you resist, persists. Just get it over with and buy five of these.
Not buying maternity clothes is like refusing a Xanax on an airplane. Don’t be a hero.
A couple of weeks ago, when I was 18 weeks pregnant, a woman I barely know, but who must now in retrospect be considered a saint, gave me a stack of hand-me-down maternity clothes.
I never would have purchased this stuff myself, because I secretly harbor paranoia that the entire baby and maternity industry is a racket trying to squirm its grubby hand into my chubby pocket and convince me I need bullshit like nursing pajamas.
Sometimes, I’m wrong. I still think the maternity industry jacks up prices because it has a captive and nervous audience, but Old Navy and Gap maternity basics are the shit. Get yourself a Gap Maternity Cami with built in bra for $19.50 and you will never take it off.
The thing about maternity clothes is that they aren’t just bigger, they are cut differently, roomier in the right places and in many cases, with a band of extra-wide, yummy elastic where the waistband of your jeans or skirt or cargo pants would normally be. Any mom knows this, but it was news to me. Even if you aren’t that big, maternity clothes are like Ugg boots for your gut, so comfortable you don’t mind looking like you just stepped out of a food court in Lodi clutching a shopping bag from Claire’s.
And if you hand your maternity clothes over to another pregnant girl when the breeding is all over, you can at least relish the knowledge that in some small way, you are sticking it to The Man.
I love maternity clothes! I don’t know if its from my desire to be a mother or just my total lack of fashion sense, but everytime I pass a maternity store I have to go in!
ok since I’m adopting and never had my own kids, this was news to me (and would probably never work anyway since I’m a freakish 6’2″ but it is similar to when your kids are born and start growing like weeds at unexpected times. You find yourself with all these random clothes for kids and they sort of come and go every few months but you also have a backstock in the basement (or storage closet) that you routinely run to for this and that….also their shoes…I feel lucky that I have two girls because one can grow into the other’s clothes but kids clothes while fun are also time consuming and also slightly addicting. I find I NEVER shop for myself anymore, but always end up sort of sneaking into the kids dept even when I mean to shop for myself. It’s sneaky but fun, because their clothes are always so much cuter than my own. Which explains the stained t-shirt I wore most of this weekend.
In Europe for both pregnancies, it was all about H & M Maternity clothes – cool, fashionable and comfy
It’s been 3 years since I had to wear my maternity clothes and I’m just waiting for someone to take them off my hands. Most of my clothes were professional clothes which to some younger, hipper mommies-to-be would turn their nose up. That is the racket. If an expecting mother is into casual clothes, they are easier to hand down, find, and purchase. But if you work in a professional environment, you have to go upscale to buy clothes that keep you looking professional.
Lodi!! Good call. The valley is awesome for people watching. Sometimes I wish the young knocked up teens (also found in Lodi) would be tossed a few hand-me-down maternity outfits. Nothing cute about an outie and bottom half of the belly sticking out of non-maternity shirt. No thanks.
T,
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a group of breeding friends roughly your size. My posse (aka The Ladies who Lunch) all managed to have our kids in a tightly knit (but not trimester over laying) bunch … we passed a group of very groovy Gap and Japanese Weekend basics (cami’s, cool “normal looking” tops, and pants with those wide elastics at the top that ARE really the shit. We got about 4 kids from the tops and cami’s and about 3 from the pants (we did the pinky promise to buy black and other neutral “hide a million oops, is my 36 week belly really that close to the guacamole ?). We thought about having a celebratory burning ceremony when the last spawn hatched, but one of us was in hibernation with a chicken pox kid, another was sleep deprived due to a croupy asthma kid and one was trying very hard not to make good on a detailed plan to feed her hubby to their Akita.
It was great having a “basic” wardrobe of comfy but not gross clothes to make it through the mid to late preggy days and also the whole Sisterhood of the Traveling Maternity top was groovy too.
FYI after a 15 year loyalty to a particular brand of bra, I actually switched allegiance, because the maternity/nursing bra was the most comfortable piece of underwear I ever owned, so when I went back to regular bras, I just bought from their line – so I guess that was ONE good thing that came from dealing with ginormous boobs for a while (being an A cup sister I always dreamed of real boobs – but when I finally got them …. I wasn’t actually a fan – weird).
Ooops, should have said good post! Waiting on your next post!
Hey T,
Have you tried Belly Bands? You can wear these with your regular pants, you just unbutton and unzip and throw one of these on. I loved them…the only problem is that you cant wear them your entire pregnancy. Also buy one nice designer pair of maternity pants or get them off ebay…they fit fantastically and you feel cute!
T,
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a group of breeding friends roughly your size. My posse (aka The Ladies who Lunch) all managed to have our kids in a tightly knit (but not trimester over laying) bunch … we passed a group of very groovy Gap and Japanese Weekend basics (cami’s, cool “normal looking” tops, and pants with those wide elastics at the top that ARE really the shit. We got about 4 kids from the tops and cami’s and about 3 from the pants (we did the pinky promise to buy black and other neutral “hide a million oops, is my 36 week belly really that close to the guacamole ?). We thought about having a celebratory burning ceremony when the last spawn hatched, but one of us was in hibernation with a chicken pox kid, another was sleep deprived due to a croupy asthma kid and one was trying very hard not to make good on a detailed plan to feed her hubby to their Akita.
It was great having a “basic” wardrobe of comfy but not gross clothes to make it through the mid to late preggy days and also the whole Sisterhood of the Traveling Maternity top was groovy too.
FYI after a 15 year loyalty to a particular brand of bra, I actually switched allegiance, because the maternity/nursing bra was the most comfortable piece of underwear I ever owned, so when I went back to regular bras, I just bought from their line – so I guess that was ONE good thing that came from dealing with ginormous boobs for a while (being an A cup sister I always dreamed of real boobs – but when I finally got them …. I wasn’t actually a fan – weird).
I loved Gap Maternity! Anything that made me feel even a little cute while I was pregnant was the best! And yes Target has cute stuff too!
Target has such adorable and affordable maternity clothes. A lot of them are cut in such a way that they don’t LOOK like maternity clothes, and you can continue to wear them for a couple of months after the baby is born, until your body recovers from the pregnancy and childbirth process.
ha ha, I was someone that just HATED the idea of looking pregnant and wearing dumb pregnant looking clothing. I bought ONE pair of maternity sweatpants and wore them with my husbands sweatshirts. Granted, I could hide out in the house all day and not have to show up looking classy at some office job. I really really hated looking pregnant!