Maternity Clothes Woes

Today I'm wearing a pair of my friend's capris as full-length pants. This is the sort of thing you're able to do when you're only 5-feet tall.

This good friend dropped off two boxes of her maternity clothes at my house yesterday afternoon and I am sooo grateful. I probably could have used a belly band with my regular clothes for another month or so, but the constant adjusting and unrolling was getting a bit annoying.

My friend is probably a size or two smaller than me on the bottom (big butt here, remember), but most of it seems to work fine. I only ended up being able to fit in one pair of her maternity jeans--the others wouldn't go past my volleyball thighs. The dress pants are so comfortable, I'm seriously wondering why all pants don't come with elastic waist bands. Get it together, clothing designers!

A bit unfortunately though, my friend's kids were both due in late summer, meaning she was getting bigger in the spring and summer. She was able to wear her normal clothes in the winter. Much of one of the boxes was filled with tanktops, sundresses, and shorts. I'm entering this week's forecast of 8-12 inches of snow with three pairs of dress pants, one pair of jeans, and a pair of capris that are about 1/4 inch too short (thankfully as long as I pair them with boots it isn't noticeable).

Also a bit unfortunately, other than my direct supervisor, no one at work knows I'm pregnant. So I'm still covering my (barely-there) bump with sweaters, cardigans, and vests. Maternity clothes like to emphasize even the smallest bumps, so I still don't have a lot to wear at work unless I cover it with a sweater...which I guess in 12° weather (yes, that's the forecast for next week---booo), isn't really a problem. I'm not really sure how to tell everyone at work. The obvious answer would be to announce it during staff meeting. We always have a time at the beginning to share personal news, but in no world does that sound like anything I would do. Being the center of attention like that would be unbearable. I've also thought about telling a few people, and since I work with all catty women, just letting it spread on its own. But then I'll be answering individual questions for the next month until everyone has heard. And that sounds pretty awful too. I'm not really friends, or even acquaintances, with anyone at work. There are several days a week I don't actually talk to anyone here. I'm feeling really weird about the whole thing, because I'm not going to be able to hide it much longer.

In other non-clothing crisis news, I got to hear Cannoli's little heartbeat last Friday. Dr. G. said my uterus was measuring perfectly (um...thanks?), and he found the heartbeat instantly. None of the drama of last time, thank God. He also pointed out that all of the "alien noises" I heard on the doppler were the baby moving. He asked me if I had felt any. I said that sometimes I think I do, but I'm not sure if it's really movement or just digesting food. He told me that officially I'm not supposed to feel anything until 19-20 weeks, but many women report movement earlier. Even as he was speaking, there was huge static on the doppler.

"That was a huge kick," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if you feel those if you're laying still."

So I guess I'm going to try to pay attention more and see if I can feel movement.

I'm 17 weeks today and starting to feel like more of a human than in my last post. I even made it most days last week without a nap. I went to the chiropractor on Thursday and he fixed my back. I can walk upright again and actually move without my hips feeling like they're about to jump out their sockets. The nausea seems to be lessening. It's still there, but not as constant and not as strong. I mean, I've kind of forgotten what it feels like to have absolutely zero nausea, but I can at least live with this. We have our anatomy scan on December 1. We're not finding out the gender, but I'm anxious to see our Cannoli again (and hope that it looks more like a baby than a Cannoli--like it did last time we saw it).

I'm exciting to be heading into the holidays and how much time I'll get to spend with my family. We have so much to be thankful for every year, but we're especially grateful for our new little one this year.

I'm also very thankful for maternity pants heading into Thanksgiving...or, you know, Thanksgiving Pants.