Maternity and Non-Maternity Clothing
My Journey to finding comfortable and stylish maternity clothes.
Chapter 1: Buying non-maternity clothes for maternity wear.
{above: maternity style shoot we did for one of the Selfie Saturday.
These photos were taken by my hubby.
I posted the ones I took on my photography blog here.
Note: the dress is not that see-through.
I pulled the lining up to let the light come through and show the shape of my baby belly}
Those that have been following me from the beginning might remember that I started this pregnancy with a massive aversion to maternity clothes. As a newly pregnant girl who likes to look cute, I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that being pregnant had to mean suddenly having to buy clothes at Old Navy or something equally tragic. And while some might argue that Old Navy isn’t the epitome of cheap unattractive clothing, their maternity line is definitely nausea inducing. {note: I do have admit that Old Navy has improved greatly since last time I’ve been to their store/website, which was about 5 years ago, but their maternity line is still pretty horrible).
So not knowing any better ( and I’m sure it’s going to be a recurrent theme, now that I’m on my way to mommyhood) I swore to NEVER buy/wear maternity clothes, except for when absolutely necessary. I figured I’d continue to wear my pre-pregnancy clothing as long as I can and then buy only a few pieces.
So I was pretty excited to buy a few non-maternity items in my “new” size that I can hopefully wear post-partum. One morning while obsessively checking the new “offerings” at MYHABIT ( a 50-70% off designer and non-designer sale site by Amazon), because the damn things sell out faster than Zulily, I saw a maternity line as one of their sales. I don’t even remember the name of the line, but it was cheap enough and I was curious enough to try it out. So I quickly added a few items to my cart and hit check out.
To make a long story short, I had to return 4 out of 6 items. Why? Because it was exactly what I expected. The pattern that I thought “maybe maybe maybe” could be cute in person was, in fact, exactly what makes maternity clothing so horrible. The shorts that I assumed just looked “funky” on the model were, in fact, the typical “mom shorts”. The dresses made me look like a whale, a whale covered with the most unattractive old lady pattern.
So needless to say, this cemented my decision to NEVER EVER look at maternity clothing again :)
Fast forward to today, and I gotta tell you, I did manage to find a FEW maternity clothing companies that I actually get excited about! And I finally see the reason to buy actual maternity clothes, especially if you’re working during pregnancy. I cannot wait to hold a few giveaways for all your pregnant and TTCing readers and share these discoveries with you. So stay tuned!
But for now, I’d like to show you, guys, what I bought on my quest to find non-maternity maternity appropriate attire.
Before we proceed, I have to tell you, I’m obsessed with dresses. When I go shopping, I buy dresses. I don’t know, whether it’s my lack of styling abilities or the girl within me but dresses are my favorite things to wear. They’re comfy, easy to put on, and easy to match up, no mess and easy to fit in when you’re pregnant ( seems like easy is what I am digging these days). So you’ll be seeing a lot of dresses here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Dress #1:
Ok, this is not an everyday dress by any stretch imagination. My hubby bought it for my birthday for several reasons.
- I LOVED IT and showed it to him ( and he actually remembered)
- It’s so feminine…
- It will accommodate my growing belly
Once I received the dress, I quickly realized that there will be very few occasions where I’ll get to wear this one during pregnancy and only with leggings, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still love it. And the bonus is I’ll be definitely wearing it post-partum.
Dress #2
You’ve seen a little bit of this one before. My friend Elena sent me a gift card to VS for my birthday and I bought two non-maternity dresses that I’ll be able to wear during pregnancy. This was one of them.
Dress # 3
Dress #4
Dress #5:
Are we seeing a pattern here? A lot of red, right? Why am I drawn to red all of a sudden? I don’t know, probably compensating for lack of stylish clothes that fits.
So super cute dress… very loose and romantic. I love it.
Dress #6
Dress #7
Maternity Shirt:
Non-maternity shirt and jeans :
Shirt: After ordering it, I realized i had a similar shirt from a NYC designer I worked for who paid me in clothes (yeah, how fair is that?), but yellow is just such an irresistible color, I HAD to keep it. It makes me happy.
Jeans: I got these as a part of a non-maternity order, they were cheap- I figured I’d throw them in, for the time when I am so big I need them or so cold I have to wear them.
So maternity jeans, huh? I’ve heard a lot about them! I gotta tell you though…. Do you think it’d be weird if I wore them when I am not pregnant?… and… Why don’t they make jeans with stretchy bands for non-pregnant people?
More red:
And finally,
UPDATE: As some of you pointed out, none of these options are breasfeeding friendly ( except for a dress or two), which is not something I even thought about in early pregnancy when I was buying these. I’m definitely planning on breastfeeding and have found a few companies with great maternity outfits for that make nursing easy.
I can’t wait to write more about it and, like I mentioned before, we’ll be having a few maternity giveaways, so don’t forget to subscribe (on the sidebar) and if you want to make sure you stay in touch and get all the updates, LIKE our Facebook Page {I’ve been a lot more active on it lately}