Scenes from a baby shower

With the aunts-to-be!

This past weekend I had the first of my baby showers. It was hosted by Chris's mom and stepmom, who worked beautifully together to throw a very nice party. The food was delicious and there were plenty of sweet treats too. I was happy to be surrounded by wise women of all ages, whose support and encouragement help me feel confident and enthusiastic about becoming a mother.

My friend China (who I wrote about here) came back to Pittsburgh from New York for the occasion. It was so fantastic to see her and catch up! My mom and sister also made the drive from far south of Pittsburgh to far north, in order to be a part of the festivities.  It was a great day to spend time with women I love. Chris came for the latter portion of the shower to say hello and help us transport all the gifts and donations that we collected for the food bank,* back to the city.

With the grandmas-to-be!

Everyone was incredibly sweet and made me feel comfortable in my changing (and growing) skin. I joked with the guests that I felt and looked smaller just a few days prior. I swear my belly popped even more, seemingly overnight, and just in time for the occasion! The room was full of kind, thoughtful, generous loved ones. And in turn, Chris and I felt very loved and immensely grateful.

Outfit details: I wore a More of Me Maternity faux wrap dress with a camisole (because I knew I would be in front of too many people to show a lot of visible cleavage without feeling exposed). I also wore extremely comfortable maternity tights by Assets! Assets is Spanx's diffusion line and I was pleasantly surprised to find pairs on clearance for $5 at my local Tuesday Morning. The quality of these tights seems pretty good and they don't have the dreaded shine of a lot of affordable hosiery.

*To follow up our Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank benefit, held to correspond with our wedding (blogged here), the shower hostesses coordinated a baby food drive where we collected donations from the guests. We both thought it was a great idea and it allowed us to do some good while we were so generously showered with baby things.

Designer Maternity Brands Reviewed: Part 1 (More of Me Maternity)

 

The most frustrating thing about dedicating one's ancillary budget toward maternity clothing is that you know its use-value is temporary. My typical rationale of evaluating the "cost-per-wear" really goes out the window if the period of time during which I can wear something is constrained by biology. But knowledge of the impracticality of an "investment" pregnancy wardrobe doesn't mean I don't want to look like myself just as being pregnant doesn't mean I've stopped caring about clothes.

I've tried to make a lot of non-pregnancy clothes work with mixed results. Sadly, my favorite tent dresses that I had hoped would still fit became too short once a belly was "Winnie-the-Poohing" everything upwards. But jersey knits have been fantastic. Do I think I can command a classroom wearing cotton t-shirt maxi dresses from the Gap? Not really. And definitely not for an entire semester. So in my final days of summer break, I began cobbling together a "pregnant professor" wardrobe to ease my anxieties about being in front of a bunch of post-adolescents with a visible bump. So far, things have gone well. I didn't anticipate how much more easily I would feel out of breath while lecturing and moving around. But I think I look the part of prof through my occasional huffs and puffs.

Recently, Amazon has been running decent clearance sales on some fancy maternity clothes that seem campus-friendly. I also happened to have a 20% off clothing coupon (given when you opt in to receive their clothing emails), so with free Prime shipping and free returns the risk of ordering some new duds seemed low. I picked some clothes from a variety of unfamiliar but supposedly reputable maternity designers. I will be going through each brand in separate posts over the next few days and hope it isn't too much drudgery for the non-pregnant crowd. I put the first review of the above dress under a cut for that reason.

The one really good thing about maternity clothes being a temporary necessity is that A LOT of people sell off what they bought on ebay or in consignment stores once they are done with pregnancy. So there are deals to be found if you are willing to search the secondhand marketplace in addition to sale stalking.

A caveat*: of course everyone "carries" differently so my suggestions regarding the periods of time during pregnancy when these garments will be useful will vary depending on your own belly. I am currently in the beginning of my third trimester of pregnancy. The dresses I am keeping are ones that I believe will fit me through parts of the third trimester and into postpartum (nursing) times.