Maternity Clothes are Made to Make You Look Pregnant

Tonight I was doing laundry in preparation for our travels and threw my favorite non-maternity jeans in the washing machine.  The jeans shrink a little when they're washed, so I don't wash them often.  However, today I accidentally took off those jeans without unfastening them and so decided they could probably use a good wash and a little shrinking.  While my favorite jeans were washing, I remembered that I wanted to use our free dinner vouchers at the university dining hall for supper and discovered that the dining hall closed in 30 minutes.  Since my favorite jeans were not available, I tried on my brown pants that fit snugly last week.  They fit even more snugly today and might have exploded off me as my stomach got fuller while eating.  It became clear that my one pair of maternity jeans was my only option, so I put them on.

I remember my maternity jeans being comfortable when I tried them on a few months ago, but tonight they felt like they were going to fall off of me, not a good feeling when you're about to go out in public.  There was no waistband to help them stay on, and they aren't snug around my hips.  Eventually, these things will be assets, but now they make me want to buy suspenders.  Having no other choices, I pulled my sweater down over the maternity jeans and was going to glance at myself quickly in the mirror before rushing out the door, but I was unable to rush because I was transfixed by the image of myself looking very pregnant.  My sweater was bulging with belly.  Before putting the maternity jeans on, my belly barely caused a ripple in my sweater.  And my sweater was just short of covering the maternity panel.  But I had no other options.

While filling my plate in the dining hall, I kept hitching up my pants to keep them from feeling saggy though they were never in serious danger of falling off.  After we ate, I wanted to go to Walmart to return a few items and add some toys to the baby registry.  I tugged on my pants throughout the trip to Walmart and realized that, though I was having fun picking out toys, my face's default expression was not a pleasant one because I was peeved with my pants.  My abdomen felt like it was straining outward to provide enough tension to hold up the pants, and it was failing to do anything but make me look huge and feel bloated (and it wasn't because I was gassy this time).

On the way home I grumbled to Matt about my pants but admitted that as bad as the waistless full panel jeans are they are probably better than the "muffin top" that under-belly maternity jeans would give me.  I have considered suspenders or a belt until my belly is able to hold up the maternity jeans securely.  Having a short torso, I can almost tuck the top of the panel under my bra.  But for now my non-maternity jeans are still the best option, and I may not wash them again until after the baby is born so that I can wear them as much as possible before and immediately our baby's arrival.

Some women really look forward to looking and feeling pregnant.  Many women are completely sick of looking and feeling pregnant by the time they have their babies.  I'm not interested in binding my abdomen for vanity's sake, but I'm also in no hurry to look or feel pregnant.  I have several more months to look and feel pregnant.  Why rush it if I feel better and look better in non-maternity jeans?

So at this moment I am sitting on my couch in my newly cleaned and shrunken non-maternity jeans, stretching them a little for maximum comfort during our travels, blogging about how I hate maternity pants, and feeling thankful that my pregnancy has so few problems that I'm ranting about saggy pants.

...

I decided to take pictures to show what I'm talking about (I'm a little obsessed):
non-maternity jeans (with "slimming" panels) ** maternity jeans ** non-maternity knit lounge pants (the experiment's control)

Matt and I agree that the maternity pants add a month or two of roundness that the others don't.

And they make me feel like my guts are trying to rush out of my navel.  I think a waistband reminds my abs to try to hold in my guts. I'm not talking about sucking in to make me slimmer but "engaging" the abs enough to provide reasonable support to the organs beneath.  Without a waistband, my abs are apparently forgetful.

As another point of comparison, I found a picture of me taken August 31 (approximately 8 weeks pregnant)

The angle is different and the clothes are different, but you can see the same protuberance in my upper abdomen, above my waist, in both pictures.  Mostly my belly is just firmer than it was then because there's more in there than there used to be.  That's why I was so shocked to see how round I looked in the maternity jeans.