Me and My Super-Sexy Maternity Fashions

I managed to wear regular clothes for quite a while during this pregnancy, but sometime in the past month or so I hit the point of no return and am pretty much wearing maternity clothes all of the time.

The best thing about maternity clothes? Not having to be preoccupied about whether your zipper is undone. Some of our friends use the phrase "Kennywood's open!" when someone has their fly open. Nobody has had to use that phrase on me recently, though, because I haven't worn anything with a fly in ages. Usually I'm pretty good about keeping my zippers zipped, but I do have a few items of clothing where the zippers have renegade slipping tendencies. It's just nice not to have to think about zippers.

Of course, the way that many clothing items get around the need for a zipper is through the use of a super-stretchy panel. I feared the panel at first, but it really is a pregnant woman's friend. For example, I have two pairs of maternity jeans. One pair stays on; the other nearly always falls off (even at this stage). The difference is that one has the panel, while the other just has a stretchy waistband. The trouble with the panel, though, is that the panel line is the new panty line. It always kind of bugs me when I look in the mirror and can see the top of the panel through my shirt (especially since it's usually only a little lower than the bottom of my bra).

The clothing feature that bugs me the most lately is having so much stuff that ties in the back. I hate that feeling when you're leaning back against a chair and you go, "hey, what's that thing against my back?" and you realize it's part of your clothing. It's not huge on the list of pregnancy discomforts but it sometimes seems unnecessary to begin with.

I do kind of hate how the maternity items in local reasonably-priced places tend to be picked over to the point that when I shop, the only things left on the shelves tend to be XXS and XXXL. I actually went to three or four different Target stores one time trying to see if any of them had this one dress in something close to my size, and they all had it, but the size selection got worse and worse the more that I looked. Don't even get me started on the one nearby Old Navy that deigns to carry maternity items.