Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Does this make my belly look big?

By this point in my last pregnancy, I'd purchased and begun to wear maternity clothes. I quit being able to button my regular pants even before the beta, thanks to the joys of OHSS; rubber bands and a Bella Band got me through to about ten weeks, but after that, it was time to break out the shirts with the stupid ties on the back.
I wasn't really measuring more than a couple weeks ahead, but I have such a short torso that the belly popped right out front from the get-go.

Obviously, it's different this time. (I think that is my tagline for this pregnancy.) I've lost enough weight to have gone down almost a full clothes size, but in the last week, I've started to think my waist has been thickening up. Why, I might even start to look pregnant soon!

Then I saw Amalah's belly shot at ~7 weeks, and I wondered who I'm kidding. If current trends continue, I'll start wearing maternity clothes sometime in July. I have a formal event to go to, nausea permitting, in a couple weeks -- my little brother the almost-doctor's Match Day banquet, when they announce where the students will do their residencies -- and I don't feel the slightest need to drag down the maternity formal I wore to a wedding at twelve weeks with the girls. Instead, I'm wondering if I can fit into the dress I wore on our honeymoon cruise.

I actually bought a couple maternity tops the day of our first ultrasound, on the principle that the good stuff goes fast in the size you want. I was smaller going into this pregnancy than my last one, so all of my old stuff is between one and three sizes too big, depending on when it was bought. I'm mostly going to have to buy new stuff when the time comes, and until then, I don't have much in the way of spring clothes which fit. I'm ready to go ahead and have a visible belly and dress like it, instead of being stuck in this weird HG-weight-loss-bumpless-limbo.

This is an uncomfortable stage of pregnancy anyway, when you know you're pregnant but nobody else can tell yet, and maybe you've just got the worst case of stomach flu in the history of ever. Awkward clothing just makes it that much less pleasant.

1 comment:

Stacie said...

Maternity clothing is just dreadful across the board. I hope you feel beautiful and glowingly pregnant for much of this pregnancy rather than huge and barfy.