I’m pretty sure that every newly-diagnosed pregnant woman immediately tries to read everything she can on the mysterious state of motherhood. At least that’s the way it was for me. The line had barely turned pink before I was Googling “pregnancy” and looking for all the information I could find. There were the typical “calculate your due date” websites and the “Here’s what the Baby is doing this week” sites. But it was the “Changes In You” sections that really turned me off. No pregnant woman—especially not this one—wants to be told that the only thing growing faster than the baby’s brain cells during Week 7 may be her ever-lengthening feet. Honestly, how many pregnant women have to shop for new shoes before a new bra? Somehow, I doubt the authenticity of their information. But, there was enough similarly scary information out there. Who knew that pregnant women are constipated? Or grow dark pigmentation marks on their skin? Or gain increased and thicker hair growth—on all areas of their bodies? There are enough horror stories out there to turn any wanna-be mother off her future state of motherhood. It didn’t take long before I decided, in deference to my quickly departing self-esteem that reading everything available on pregnancy might not be the best idea.
Pregnancy: 1
Self-Confidence: 0
After about a week of rushing through my closet in the morning, trying on multiple outfits before finding something that actually fit, and hurrying to make it out the door before I was any later, I decided it was time to purge my closet. Anything that wasn’t flattering had to go. Sunday evening I sat down and methodically tried on every item in my wardrobe. As a laid aside pair after pair of pants (only my two largest pairs fit anymore) I realized that this very well could be the last time I got any use out of my nice working-girl wool dress slacks. I have every hope of fitting into them once more, but since I don’t plan on working anywhere that requires dressing in heels and nice slacks anytime soon, I’m not sure that I will get much use out of them. This was a sad realization. While I’m happy to stay at home—looking forward to it actually—it’s a bit hard to set aside everything I’ve worked towards for the past years. A college education. Years of experience as a teacher. A master’s degree. All to sit at home and wear less than professional attire on a daily basis. I had to mourn for just a bit… then stack my unusable clothing up as high as possible in my closet.
Pregnancy: 2
Self-Confidence: 0
Every pregnant woman enters the stage of pregnancy where she just feels fat, but doesn’t actually look pregnant. Regular clothes don’t fit. Maternity clothes don’t fit. Everything just looks bad. Part of me was hesitant to become the obviously pregnant woman; I wanted to stay thin as long as possible—or at least look like I could fool people. The other part of me just wanted a belly as soon as possible so everyone would know what I was going through and most of my life would be self-explainable.
In this awkward state of limbo, I was confronted by my first cold-questioning of “are you pregnant?” I was subbing for a second grade classroom and before the day was over Aileigh came up and asked me “Haileigh (yes, there was a Aileigh, Haileigh, and Kaileigh all in the same class) and I were wondering…We thought you looked pregnant. Are you going to have a baby?” I explained that, yes, I was going to have a baby in the summer. She smiled and left, confident that she had guessed right. While Haileigh was cute (and, thankfully, right) it made me wonder. If it is becoming obvious that I might be pregnant, but only a second-grader would be brave enough to ask, what are all the other people in the world thinking? Am I just fat? Or am I possibly pregnant? Suddenly, I wanted that pregnancy belly faster than it was possible.
Pregnancy: 3
Self-Confidence: 0
As my belly has taken on more of a life of its own, it’s become necessary to seek out some maternity apparel. I have been less than impressed with the selections available. Few stores even offer a maternity selection of clothing. Those that do, have extremely limited choices. In most cases, those extremely limited choice are either incredibly unattractive or incredibly expensive. For a foot-sore pregnant woman who is in dire need of an entirely new wardrobe these are difficult battles to overcome. To make it even worse, the maternity section is, in my experience, always located in the most inconvenient of unintuitive location possible. Take Kohl’s for example:
For your ease of comprehension, I’ve created a diagram of the store layout. As you can see, the maternity section is located on the entirely opposite end of the store. This means that after you have tracked down an employee who lets you know where the section is, you must navigate all the way through the women’s section, past the table linens and dishes, through the lingerie, bypass the purses and jewelry, around the men’s section, and almost to the infants before arriving in the teeny-tiny maternity offerings.
Believe it or not, it gets worse. Once you’ve made your selections, you must locate a dressing room. If you notice from my sketch, the only nearby dressing rooms are entirely encompassed within the men’s apparel. Not wanting to change in one of those, you must back track all the way through the store to find a women’s room. Along the way you might question who exactly planned the layout of this department store. Obviously, it wasn’t someone with any sort of appreciation for the state of motherhood.
Heaven forbid you need a different size or color in an item you’ve selected; that would require making the trek all the way to the opposite end of the store once more. This time, though, you might be lucky enough to pass a three-year old boy running away at top speed from his frantic mother, who attempts to chase him down, yelling all the way. It might be enough to make you wonder what exactly you’ve gotten yourself into.
Pregnancy: 4
Self-confidence: 0
