2-13-11 - Maternity Clothes

I have been gradually stocking up on maternity clothes, and today I made quite a few purchases to add to my arsenal of clothing for the upcoming summer.

So far, I've already purchased a swim suit, khaki skirt, and a top from Motherhood Maternity.  What I've learned so far is that I am definitely a medium in shirts and tops, and somewhere between a medium and large in bottoms, but hopefully since I'll be wearing this stuff in the last three months, the bigger sizes (I got larges in everything) will fit.  I think for any future purchases though I'm going to order mediums.

I also ordered a pair of gray dress pants that I found on Wal-Mart.com that were on clearance for $13, and two maternity tank tops, since black and white ribbed tank tops are pretty much a wardrobe staple for me year round.

Then this past weekend I went to Gabriel Brother's to browse for a new purse (and found not one, but two for $7 each!) and I noticed that they had some maternity clothes.  Granted, it was only three racks (what stores, other than Motherhood Maternity, are in the Pittsburgh region and have actual physical locations where I can browse through racks!?!??!) but I was excited to be able to try some things on instead of just shopping from the internet.

I picked up some Old Navy Maternity tanks that they no longer have on their website, but that are basically just a tank top with an empire waist, and I got it in three different colors because I loved how they fit.  They were fitted and cute while still leaving plenty of room for growing.  I also picked up a white short-sleeved v-neck shirt, a pink Old Navy shirt with ruching on the side, and a pair of just below the knee skinny denim capris (can you really call something that is part of a maternity line "skinny?"  Probably not.) The shirts were all $5.99 each and the jeans were $7.99, so for $37.94 I got 6 items and I feel like I got a ton of clothing!  Definite win! If I can continue to stock up on stuff like this when it's on sale, I won't have to spend $1000 to make my wardrobe maternity friendly.  My regular pants are already starting to feel a little tight, but I haven't yet had to start unbuttoning my pants, so at least there's that!

Then a day later, I also purchased a pair of maternity jeans from Target for $7.50.  They were originally $29.99, and the sticker said they were on sale for $14.98, but they rung up for $7.50! I love surprise discounts.

I tried to do a little photo fashion show, but I more or less failed.  The lighting in our house is pretty horrible at night (not a lot of overhead lighting, so it's all lamp light) and I'm not very skilled at self-photography.  But here they are anyway.  At least you get a sense of what I've gotten so far!

One of the Old Navy tanks with the Motherhood khaki skirt

 The Target jeans (full panel) - they're like, 95% spandex.  I'm not sure if there's actually denim in them.  Thus super comfortable.

The demin capris with the white v-neck tank

Another shot of the denim capris - these are under-the-belly pants, unlike the Target jeans

As you can see, I'm trying both the "full panel" and "under the belly" versions of things. Some people feel strongly one way or the other, but so far they've both felt fairly comfortable to me.  I may have a strong opinion later on, but for now I'm going to give both styles a fair try.

Now that I've invested some money into these clothes, I need to hope that everything still looks as cute when I'm 20 pounds heavier in the middle.  Some of these clothes are so cute and comfortable I seriously could start wearing them now!