Adorable, yes?
Why is it that I can find such wonderful clothes for my children, and yet it is so difficult to find simply practical, comfortable, and attractive maternity clothing for myself? Set aside the fact that I spend much more time and am much more interested in finding fabulous things for my kids. That’s a given. But, I should still be able to find decent stuff to help me look nice through the 6-ish months of my pregnancy when I can’t fit into my regular clothes anymore. Right?
Now I will concede that I have found some nice casual and everyday work clothes for this pregnancy. I refused to spend much money on maternity clothes when I was pregnant with Miss, which resulted in me buying mostly junk that is no longer wearable this time around, and the clothes I have from my pregnancy with Lass are mostly not appropriate because of different seasons. So, I had to buy some new maternity clothes recently. Plus, with this being my third pregnancy in three years, I really was just sick of looking dumpy. This time I invested in a few nice new items, and some great jewelry (check out this Etsy shop), so that I will be a little more comfortable and stylish for the next 5-6 months.
Unfortunately, I have never needed, and have not wanted to invest in a maternity business suit, so when I got the call two days ago that I needed to appear in court to provide expert witness testimony today, I had nothing to wear! I went to every maternity store nearby and several department stores with pitifully small maternity sections. I couldn’t find a suit, though I’m not sure I really expected to. I would have settled for a nice blazer that I could wear with the black maternity pants I already have. But no. I found one jacket that was horridly ugly and much too short to wear over any other maternity shirt without it hanging out the bottom (and one can’t exactly tuck a shirt in to maternity pants). I didn’t have time to find and order anything online. I was frantically searching the stores for other nice business attire and was shocked to find how casual most of the “business” maternity clothing out there is. Now, I suppose for many work situations, the things I saw would be fine. But surely there are pregnant women out there who have to wear a business suit or at least a jacket to work on a regular basis. Right? Where are these elusive suits? Why is a maternity blazer so horrid-looking? These are the questions I was asking myself as I walked into court this morning wearing my black pants, a button up shirt I purchased when pregnant with Miss (couldn’t even find a nice one of these in the past two days!), and a black cardigan sweater that sort of, very loosely, approximated a business-jacket-type look. I felt woefully underdressed.
Fortunately, my testimony went well. I’m sure no one else was nearly as concerned about my lack of a suit as I was. And most importantly, my girls looked adorable today.
I was trying to find pretty, contemporary-looking maternity wear for my daughter-in-law, without it looking like teen or sport attire, and a) most stores simply don’t carry any at all, and b) even the maternity stores carry a poor selection of trendy knit wear. Ugh. I feel bad for you. But you’d look great anywhere! 🙂