Tag Archives: babies

July 8, 2013 · 1:04 PM

Not Your Mother’s Maternity Muumuu

Maternity clothes have progressed mightily in the last thirty years, and those currently pregnant among us are deeply grateful. Gone are the days of large floral smocks disguising not just a bump but one’s entire body. No more are women roaming their homes in oversize overalls.

Instead, figure-hugging clothes are the norm, and bump-accentuation is the standard. This comes with the added bonus of allowing pregnant women to look approximately thirty pounds lighter.

Once pregnant, I knew right away what I wanted my maternity clothes to look like, and more importantly, what I didn’t want them to look like. I didn’t want my style to change along with my body. If I didn’t wear ruffles and bows before, I was not going to wear them now just because I became a party of three.

With that in mind, I hit the stores.

“Stores” is a loose term here, because there really aren’t any. Online shopping is an absolute must for maternity wear, and that’s because very few stores exist for preggos, and those that do have a tiny section in the back corner that make you feel like you’re shopping for illicit sex toys rather than garments for your widening girth.

My mom and I went downtown to scope the scene around my 14th week of pregnancy, before I really needed any maternity clothes. We wanted to get ahead of the game so when it came time I wouldn’t be frantically shopping in an ill-fitting shirt. Our first stop, naturally, was A Pea in the Pod.

This was an excellent first choice because of the service and selection. The saleswoman congratulated me and started showing me great starter pieces. We got shirts that are absolutely fantastic because of the fabric — the stretchiest I have ever encountered, and also the longest. The magic of these shirts is that they spring back into their original shape, which looks like a non-maternity shirt, perfect for post-pregnancy wear. They’re more expensive than other options ($45), but look infinitely better and will last far longer.

They had perfect preggo leggings, similar to the shirts in that they could be worn postpartum. Just fold the elastic panel down around your hips and you’re good to go. Again, slightly more expensive ($45) than getting your leggings elsewhere, but fantastic quality.

Easily the best part about A Pea in the Pod was the changing room. Each room came with two or three prosthetic baby bumps labeled by month, so you could try clothes on and see how you would look when further along in your pregnancy.

This was a good time.

I strapped on the nine-month bump because, as the saleswoman reminded me, “That’s only like 7 months for you,” pulled on my new clothes and popped out of that room nearly giving my mother a heart attack.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I can’t even look, it’s too real, too fast. Oh my gosh, I have to take a photo,” she kept saying.

Just for kicks, let’s compare that picture of the fake 9 month bump with my actual 7 month bump, to see if the saleslady was correct:

Here I am at 28 weeks (7 months) in the same shirt:

Apparently she knew what she was talking about.

The strange thing about A Pea in the Pod is that they combined forces with Destination Maternity. Destination Maternity is like Old Navy to Banana Republic — same owner, entirely different approach. We went to the Destination Maternity portion of the store because we love a good deal, but we were quickly confronted not with good deals, but really lousy clothes. All of the fabrics were rough and cheap, and the cuts of the clothes were not flattering. Instead of form-fitted, they were boxy. It was as if they had taken all their regular clothes, made them four sizes larger, and relabeled them as maternity wear.

Even though we didn’t go cheap, we weren’t about to shell out $200 for maternity jeans either. To be fair, I am usually willing to shell out about that much for jeans, but that’s because I’ll wear them for years. I’m not going to spend that on jeans that I will wear for 5 months, and maybe not even that because June and July are not pleasant jean-wearing months. So we skipped on A Pea in the Pod jeans and headed to the Gap.

This is where we encountered the maternity shame. We asked the clerk where the maternity section was and she pointed us to the top floor, behind the children’s clothes. She wasn’t kidding — the preggo-wear was tucked in a back corner, with about four racks of clothing and a wall of jeans. Luckily, the jeans were fantastic. They fit like a dream and were $60, marked down to $35. I will say the prosthetic baby bumps in the Gap dressing room were a joke compared to the ones at A Pea in the Pod — they were like stuffing a pillow under your shirt, but at least they tried. I got a pair of skinnies (ironic, no?) and a bootleg cut. I grabbed a couple of tops and practically danced out of the store with maternity-wear glee.

Skinny maternity jeans from the Gap at 21 weeks:

The rest of the purchasing I did online, since there weren’t many other stores to choose from. I ordered several more tops and dresses from A Pea in the Pod and Gap, most of which worked, some of which I had to return. The real dark horse in this story? Old Navy maternity. Total shocker. My sister sent me a link to their website one day because they had a screaming 40% off sale, so I thought I had nothing to lose. I ordered a bunch of items that seemed foolproof and was astonished at not having to return a single item. Each one fit perfectly and was flattering…and inexpensive.

Exhibit of Old Navy attire:

Maxi dress

Maxi dress:

Knee-length eyelet dress (with my mamas at a shower — note their expert twin grandma-to-be attire of blue and pink, which was totally unintentional):

Maxi skirt and tank:

The main piece I would recommend as an absolute must-have for any pregnant woman: Old Navy’s maternity tank top. Absolutely perfect: softest, longest, stretchiest, totally wearable post-pregnancy. And at $12, you can buy one of every color. I wear them under everything, and all summer I’ve been pairing them with skirts, jeans, leggings, as pj’s — they are my go-to.

Some pieces end up having to switch gears partway through pregnancy. Take my striped dress from A Pea in the Pod. It started as a dress which I wore at Annie’s wedding rehearsal at 17 weeks pregnant:

And four weeks later I wore it as a tunic with leggings at our gender reveal party, because wearing it as a dress at that point would have given people a view privy only to my OB:

Now that I’m 36 weeks along, my options are more limited. Regular pregnancy clothes really aren’t made for twin pregnancies, so I’m walking into my closet each morning choosing between forgiving maternity dresses and leggings with tank tops. Those are pretty much the options these days. No more jeans. No more body-hugging pieces.

And that’s OK, my friends, because the countdown to the birth is on, and soon the only thing I’ll be wearing is a hospital gown.

9 Comments

Filed under UpWORD (Beauty)

Tagged as babies, maternity clothes, twins

July 3, 2013 · 5:55 PM

Move that Bump

Exercising while pregnant is a little precarious. The main recommended forms are walking, swimming and yoga. This is perfectly reasonable, but I ignored it entirely my first and most of my second trimester.

I am a runner, so I ran until about week 12, when the thought of doing so made me feel like I was taking some sort of unnecessary risk, since all the books on multiples suggested not jostling your babies for the sake of exercise. I also did barre until about six months in, because it was wonderfully strengthening and I could adjust my moves to accommodate my situation. I eventually dropped this because my heart would race through moves that normally were easy for me, and because the instructor always spent the last twenty minutes of class having us do floor exercises on our bellies, while I passed the time doing free weights or stretching.

I went swimming once, but the stares were really more than I wanted to deal with. Plus we had an alarming encounter with a precocious five-year-old that pretty much scared me out of the water forever.

Mike and I had just entered the pool and were swimming over to an uncrowded area when a little girl swam up and said, “HI!” We greeted her nicely, and then she said, “Are you married?” We said yes, and then she looked at me, looked at him, and as if she were asking about lunch, said “Then why aren’t you in bed?”

Blink. Blink, blink.

We were so shocked we didn’t know what to say, so we just said, “Because it’s not nighttime — we’re swimming!” She wasn’t buying it, so she looked for further evidence. “Where are your rings?” she asked again, with a giant grin on her face. We dutifully showed her our left hands, like nervous travelers going through customs.

Then she dove for my belly. She noticed the bump and before I knew it she was practically crawling me like a monkey up a tree. She put her hands right on my belly and started asking about the baby, and we told her there were two and she just kept touching me all over. Her father swam up by this time, but just sort of chuckled at his silly daughter. I kept trying to subtly dodge her under the water, taking a step back and then swatting her away in a manner that could be mistaken for swirling the water around. It didn’t really work, so I decided to be nice to her until Mike could break conversation with the dad to notice my rescue-me stares.

With swimming effectively ruled out, I tried prenatal yoga. This was a nice experience, being with sixteen or so other pregnant women, but it was just…hard. I’ve done yoga for several years and going through familiar moves was so taxing it didn’t seem enjoyable. The weight gain, plus the bump, plus the change in mobility all added up to me wishing class would be over already. There were some fantastic moves that stretched in just the right way, and some great moments of stillness where we could focus on our babies, but other than that I wanted to leave. No namaste.

This left walking. Ever since I stopped running, I took up walking, interspersed with the other exercises I’ve described. I would walk about 2.5 miles several times a week, and this soon became my favorite thing. Now that I’m 35 weeks along I can only do one mile, but it’s still the most wonderful twenty minutes (yes, it takes me twenty minutes). Walking works all of my joints in the right way, makes my muscles feel great, and gets my heart pumping. It’s also the best time to talk to God about all that I’m feeling about the babies and life, and it gets me outside. Walking = winning.

When I first started I’d go down to the waterfront near our home, but this involved a 300-foot descent and ascent back up. This was part of its appeal initially, but about four weeks ago I had to give it up because it was too much. That and there are no sidewalks, and cars sometimes whiz around the corners with abandon. I used to be able to move out of the way but my zigging and zagging abilities are no longer to be trusted. My brain says “Car coming, move over!” and my body is like, “I’m going to need you to fill out several forms, have them notarized and then get back to you after two weeks of processing.”

The thing about walking is that it is done in public. Normally this is not an issue, but when one is pregnant, it is. For whatever reason, walking around pregnant invites all kinds of commentary from all kinds of people.

One day I was nearing the end of my walk and I was passing an intersection, which required walking past the row of cars waiting at the red light. Without warning, a man rolled down the passenger-side window of his car, leaned over, and yelled “YOU’RE PREGNANT!” right at me. I was so alarmed I didn’t know what to do, besides jump back and keep walking, rather quickly, away from him. Really? You had to roll down your window and scream at me? Really?

Another day when I was still doing the hill near my house, a car filled with teenage girls flew by me from behind and one girl leaned out her window and yelled “HEY PREGGERS!” It scared me to death because they came up so fast, she was so loud, and it was so unexpected. I think my expression surprised her as much as she surprised me, because she ducked back in the car when she saw my face. I was absolutely astonished that a woman would do this — my only thought was a tiny prayer that she would one day be with child herself, walking on a road, and she would have a heart-stopping flashback to this moment and be filled with shame. I didn’t wish her ill, because I knew she didn’t understand what an insensitive idiot she’d been, but I had the hope that one day she would.

A far more positive encounter was with a man who asked me how far along I was, and then told me about an anti-bullying program he leads at local elementary schools involving infants. It’s based on teaching children the concept of empathy toward babies, in the hope that they will translate that to other people. Apparently it’s quite successful, but I wasn’t sure. When I told him it was twins, he shouted and started bowing down to me, which was awkward, but funny. He begged me to bring the twins to his classroom in the fall, and I took his card and told him I’d think about it. It never occurred to me that me and the little twinnies could start our philanthropic endeavors so early.

My favorite encounter has to be with a neighbor from a few streets over. He and his gaggle of family are that house in the neighborhood that always has music on outside, has nine cars strewn throughout the property, and is always tinkering on something in the front yard so they can watch the world go by. It’s all very trashy, but they’ve won me over through the months.

This neighbor, let’s call him Ed, shall we? The first time Ed saw me he was sitting on his front lawn in a chair doing nothing but staring at the road. I didn’t even see him because I was power walking by, but he definitely saw me.

“That’s a pretty fast walk for a…” he started to say, but sort of stumbled over what to call me.

“Haha, yep!” I replied, not knowing how else to respond.

“Maybe if you’d walked that fast before you wouldn’t be in your condition!” he said, cackling with laughter.

I was so shocked that he had brought sex into our non-existent conversation that my brain temporarily shut off. I smiled and kept walking.

“Well, it’s not like it’s twins or something,” he added, for no apparent reason. I couldn’t believe he’d said that, just out of the blue, so I turned and said, “YES IT IS!” with a giant smile on my face.

“WHAT?!” he said. “OH MY G-I was kidding! Um, well, oh, uh, GOOD LUCK!” he exclaimed, and suddenly he was waving his arms in the air with genuine enthusiasm, but I barely saw because I was blazing by.

You may be wondering at this point why I continue to walk. That’s a fair question that I don’t really have an answer to.

Over the next months, I continued to pass this house and every time he’d be outside, and every time Ed would have something to say.

“That’s a better pace! Don’t go too fast!” Apparently I have slowed considerably.

“Rain or shine, good for you!” As I waddled past in a raincoat that no longer closed.

“There she goes!” An obvious observation if ever there was one.

Most recently, we just wave at each other. It’s kind of fun to think of the day I will walk past his house with a double stroller.

~~~~~~~

Here we are at 35 weeks.

Things to note: 1. I have preggo face finally! 2. LOOK at my ANKLES (if they can still be called that, I think we’re in cankle territory) 3. My pregnancy tank top no longer covers the bottom of my bump. 4. This was taken on the hottest day of the year so far, it was a high of 91 — ideal for any person carrying two other people, you can imagine.

10 Comments

Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

Tagged as babies, twins

June 18, 2013 · 10:09 AM

A Gaggle of Twin Freaks

A week ago I attended my first EMOMs event. EMOMs stands for — wait for it — Eastside Mothers of Multiples. Yes, it’s a real club. And yes, I was a little cagey about attending a meeting.

Something about the concept of the group hinted at a freak-show…like gathering because we all have red hair or we’re all left-handed, both clubs for which I would be eligible for membership but wouldn’t attend if you paid me.

Right before walking in I said a quick prayer that this would be helpful, not intimidating, and not make me feel like I had just joined an illicit underground network of society. All of these prayers were answered.

First of all, there were snacks, which always warms this pregnant lady to a group of people. Secondly, people were sitting awkwardly at various tables, not speaking, and I made the Herculean effort of sitting at a table occupied by just one couple and introducing myself (and my snacks). I normally loathe this sort of interaction, but my desperation to learn from the bedraggled experience of others pushed me outside my normal confines. It turns out that being a member of EMOMs has two sides to the coin: you don’t know anyone in the room, but you have endless discussion topics with everyone because what you have in common bonds you instantly.

I found it amusing that everyone put on name tags with their twin stats:

Sarah
B/G 2 years

Adrienne
G/G 15 mos

I didn’t know this little rule so my name tag just said my name. I suppose it could have said, “Abby, B/G due in a month” but my stomach was doing all of the talking. Every person introduced themselves with an incredibly detailed rundown, but it didn’t sound at all TMI to me, because I wanted to know every detail of others’ experiences.

“Hi I’m Jen, I have fraternal twin boys who are 23 months and were born at 36 weeks 5 days via c-section.” Sometimes they’d state where they gave birth or if their kids had to be in the NICU. It was like listing war wounds from ‘Nam in a support group while everyone nodded in understanding.

Nearly everyone already had their twins; there were only two other pregnant women in attendance. But it was shocking to me how veteran I felt compared to them — they were saying things like “My doctor told me a lot of twin moms stop work at 28 weeks” and I found myself replying “That’s really only if you’re on bed-rest or having complications. I’m 32 weeks and still working full-time. You’ll be fine.”

We separated into groups based on the ages of our children, so I was in the first year group. Our discussion topic was “Feeding the Whole Family” and they passed out great recipes for protein snacks to grab while breastfeeding your litter. Naturally, a big part of feeding your whole family in the first few months is relying on others to do so — they highly recommended taking advantage of the free meal support EMOMs offers or having friends and family deliver dinners. After the initial survival period, they recommended time-savers like crock-pot meals and roasted chicken from the grocery store.

It wasn’t long before we were swapping tips on everything from breastfeeding to sleep schedules, with reviews of baby products mixed in. I grabbed for a pencil and started scribbling notes while eating my second cookie. It was incredible to have an entire table of women who were going through exactly what I was, and some who even said, “Don’t listen to the people who say your life is over and this is the worst, hardest thing you’ll ever do. It’s not that bad; you can do it!”

It’s a welcome sentiment right now, because lately I oscillate between uncontrollable excitement at meeting the babies, and mind-freezing terror at what lies ahead of me. At any given moment I’m either ecstatic with anticipation or paralyzed with fear. From what I’m told, this is normal. Mike feels the same way, and it’s amusing when we’re having opposite experiences.

“Oh my gosh can you imagine that a month from now we’ll be cuddling them and holding them all day?” one of us will say happily.

“Holy crap, it’s all day. It’s every day, with two, and twenty diapers a day, and what if they scream all the time?” the other will reply, hunched in panic.

This is why I’ll continue to attend EMOMs events. I need the cold shower of reality mixed with the soothing balm of reassurance. And snacks. I need lots of snacks.

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Filed under One WORD (Current Events)

Tagged as babies, Food, Mike Reph, twins