Clothing expiration date

Tonight was it. The last night I'll be able to wear the t-shirt I always wear to host meetings of the non-profit group I run. Last month a perceptive friend could tell I was pregnant before I made the public announcement. But my belly wasn't fully announcing itself to just anyone.

Tonight was a different story. I've been out and showing since I went to a WAHM on January 25, but this regular shirt over a turtleneck was pushing it. A friend visiting a meeting for the first time -- the one who has been so gracious of a listener and sharer just a few months after a miscarriage -- announced, "Well, you're really sporting the belly bump!" I felt embarrassed.

I guess I still don't know what it means to be a proud pregnant lady. This time last time, I was giving a presentation to a scholastic journalism conference and wearing maternity sweaters that made it obvious. I remember looking at myself naked in the hotel mirror and thinking, "I am absolutely huge."

Monday I was up to 114 lbs. and today the same scale said almost 117. I haven't dragged out my files to check on anything and haven't even given the forms to the midwife to get her own copy of them. So who knows how my growth compares to last time. I just know that the feelings I'm having do not.

Chest check

The other night was going to put my son to bed and so took off my bra while I sat on the toilet in case I fell asleep and just wanted to go to bed in my sweatshirt. The sight of my nipples caught my dear boy's attention.

"Why are they red?" he asked? Purple might be more accurate, but I guess compared to the pale pink he's used to, they probably do look red. I said something about that just happens in pregnancy. The nipples get dark. He wanted a close-up inspection, to look at whatever is on the tip of my larger-than normal pointers. I agree, it looks kinda funky.

Having nursed for three years, I used to be used to my son looking at my breasts. This, though, was like a rediscovery, as though he'd returned to country he'd forgotten about to find a whole crop of new houses in what used to be an empty field. I put my shirt down. He lifted it up and then tried looking down the front of my shirt when I pushed his hand down.

I got off the toilet, washed my hands, and announced it was time for bed.

The Question of Clothes

My friend is having a 40th birthday party on Saturday. I don't have a whole lot of fancy duds to wear for a fall/winter gathering.

I also don't have a whole lot of nice fall/winter stuff that would mask a pooching belly.

So in the past few days I've purchased over $1000 of clothes. I don't expect to keep a whole lot of them. Most was online shopping. When I see anything in stock in XSP or 00P, and it's a reasonable color, I order it. I can hardly shop in stores anymore since their smallest sizes have gone online-only (or have just increased in size to make larger folks feel better). I did manage to score a few things at Ann Taylor Loft and Loehmanns, which I'll have to model for the one who pays most of the bills these days.

But how the hell do I know what to invest in? This extra flab could be gone tomorrow. Or it could keep getting bigger. I remember the first time around, I bought some nice, breezy tank blouses I hoped would cover my belly so I would not have to announce to a brand-new crop of students that September that I was pregnant until I'd at least heard a heartbeat. School started when I was 11 weeks, and it was already a challenge to keep things under wraps, I showed so early.

But one of those tanks I've never worn. Another has been on about twice. The following year, they were too tight and too nice to wear as a nursing mom. That was probably the same the following year, since I was still a frumpy mom who was nursing a one-year-old all the time. Ditto 2008 with a two-year-old.

I might have worn them this past summer, but they just were so obviously not in style. It's one thing to wear t-shirts that are half decade old, but nice shirts that screamed 2005 were just not something I reached for in 2009.

So really, buying a pair of size 0P jeans because they are on sale and give a little room that 00Ps don't? Is that really wise?

Maybe not, but only if I'm going to keep getting bigger. If I don't, well, I could really use new jeans.

Last time I was almost my full size by Christmas, at the end of my second trimester. This time (insert requisite "if" here), I'll be just ... pause for counting ... eight and a half weeks. I should still be able to make it down the chimney, laughing like a bowl full of jelly at the pants I filled out four years earlier. I'll need something in between and up-to-date!

If I was an easy size or if I had any serious sense of fashion, this clothes issue might be a different question, but it just ain't my thing. And yet, I'm not so clueless that I don't know how bad I look when I've got the 90s goin' on.

(Well, most of the time. Sometimes my husband has to point it out).

I will have to make some purchase decisions and actually remove a few tags for Saturday's party. And if it gets super cold, I'll probably say I'm worth a new discounted-to-$25 sweater.

For the rest, I should probably wait and see if I'm going to be dropping a chunk of change back at Gap Maternity.

On not telling

I spoke on the phone to a friend today who told me she was pregnant at about the same place I am right now -- probably about 5-6 days further along. She was surprised because she was planning to do some pre-IVF fertility treatment. And then what she thought was a period -- even blogged about it -- was, in fact, just a sign that something was nuzzling into her flesh good and deep. She's now 17 weeks along, a trimester ahead of me.

I didn't say anything.

So far the only people who know are my acupuncturist, an Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner I was supposed to meet with tomorrow but allowed me to reschedule, and the receptionist at the acupuncturist's office who ordered a prenatal vitamin for me. When she called today to tell me it was in, I asked about seeing the doctor on staff for some baseline bloodwork. She wasn't sure, so she put the doctor on the phone. Non-spouse person #4 who knows!

She asked if I was going to do a homebirth and if so, with whom. Uh, I don't know yet. It's, like I said, really, really early. I just wanted to make sure my thyroid is okay and buy myself some time while we interviewed people. That's something I thought would wait for a while, like until we were a little less stunned and more certain this was for real.

She didn't want to draw my blood, said the midwife would do all the labs. Well, okay. I won't come see you, then!

And I don't want to let my friends in just yet. I've been so wishy-washy for so long, not believing it would happen or should happen. I'd like to be a little more clear on the prognosis before I make any pronouncements.

We'll see if my already changing waistline will let that happen.

Show thyself

The thing about being 5’0” and small-boned (normally hovering around 100-106 lbs) is that I start showing almost immediately. At least I did last time, and I swear it can’t be only the pumpkin pie this time around that's making me look so plump and juicy.

I don’t even know if I’m really still pregnant, but it’s like my organs have gotten orders to march north. And since there’s not a whole lot of room to travel, they start sticking out.

Granted, I was not in my most svelt shape before I got knocked up, but I was not one of those people with a gut that you look at and wonder if they’re pregnant… all the time. But now, if I let my back do its natural over-sway, I could easily pass for being halfway along.

I can also stand up straight and suck it in and look okay. But let’s remember; I’m not even five weeks yet.

I think that if this sticks, it’s going to announce itself before I will.