Every woman has fat days. A day when nothing fits, nothing is comfortable, and nothing looks good. Fat days are usually accompanied by hair that will not lay correctly and make up that looked fine in the bathroom mirror but then looks alarming when viewed in natural light. The result of a fat day is usually sweat pants, a old ratty T-shirt, no make up at all and hair in a pony tail. Add half a pint of Ben & Jerry's--which sounds unhelpful, but it's not--and the problem is usually solved.
Add being in the last ten weeks of your pregnancy to that mix, and everything changes. Sweatpants no longer fit (and even if they did it's far too hot out to think about pants) and I outgrew most of my T-shirts several months ago. Some of the husband's t-shirts still fit me, but he is a fairly slim fellow himself, so most of his shirts don't offer much respite. So what is a pregnant lady to do?
The answer is the pregnancy muumuu. The pregnancy muumuu is the dress a pregnant woman buys early in her pregnancy, usually jersey material, that looks cute on the hanger and even looks cute the first few times it's worn. Then, for some inexplicable reason, suddenly the dress makes you look four times bigger than you actually are. It drapes unflatteringly around your tummy and rear end, accentuates your hips, and falls in all the wrong places.
It is the most comfortable thing EVER.
I have just such a dress. It is bright green, has big pockets, and hugs me in all the incorrect places. But when I wake up on days like today, feeling every ounce of the 22 pounds I have put on, stomach stretching as our little guy pokes me with his elbows and knees and head, it is the comfort of this dress I turn to.
And on this particular fat day, I was also feeling a little cooped up, so I decided to get some exercise--by walking around a nice, air conditioned mall. I chose one of the higher end, yuppie malls in our area. I like to people watch as much as I like to window shop. Today, however, every person I came across seemed to have stepped out of the pages of a magazine. They were all pulled together, hair perfectly done, immaculate clothes--and all a size 2, tops. Even the mommies who pushed the strollers around the stores seemed impeccable. It was like I found an alternate universe of skinny, beautiful people in my town to surround me while I walked around looking like a chubby leprechaun with messy hair. I wanted to crawl under a bench and hide.
Instead, I went into Baby Gap. I lost myself among the racks of soft blue onesies and teeny tiny blue jean jackets. I looked at itty-bitty red sneakers that I could only fit two of my fingers in. I smiled at the baby boy in the stoller who was grinning at me, while his mother compared minuscule t-shirts that said things like "stud" and "lady's man". I felt my own little guy dance and didn't feel quite so fat anymore.
So what if I can't fit into clothes from my favorite stores anymore? So what if even some of my maternity clothes feel uncomfortably tight? My doctor says my weight is right on track and the gain is temporary, anyway. And when the end result is someone who will fit into little jean jackets and bitty red sneakers, who am I to feel bad about myself? Thanks, little man, for giving me the reality check I needed.
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