The move to maternity clothes

I spent some time this morning going through my closet and pulling out my regular-fitting clothes (um, and even my one-size up clothes) to make room for the maternity clothes.

Somehow I always feel guilty during this stage of pregnancy. Like there's this permissible period with which to move on to maternity apparel and I'm always doing it months earlier than I ought to be.

And yet... I have only one pair of my regular pants (knit, stretchy black pants) that fit me at the moment (but barely!), and every other day I end up wearing pajama bottoms or the equivalent of them (thus, not something I'm wanting to wear OUT of the house.)

The other problem is that it's REALLY hard for me to find pants that are long enough. I always get "long" or "tall", which usually means I order them online- which is hard enough with regular pants but seemingly impossible with maternity pants. Ask me how I know. In the past month I've ordered two pairs of size tall maternity pants, one at the Gap and one at Old Navy, and--both of them? Ugly.

I've spent a couple of weeks considering taking my exisiting pants and making them maternity pants. (I'd love to know if anyone has actually done this.) But then- do I really want to make my regular pants maternity pants? For just this "short' season? (Although Amy reminded me the other day that it's a whole lot longer than I remember; there's that after-the-baby comes season where you can't fit into your regular clothes, either.) But what if, in the attempt to cut into my pants and add some sort of belly panel or elastic-y band, I do it wrong and end up ruining a perfectly good pair of pants? Ugh.

So I set out today with the intent to find some pants. I brought along with me two pairs of my "perfectly good pants" with which to make into maternity pants if I had to resort to that. My last stop was going to be the fabric store to pick up some knit material or some wide elastic.

I first went to the three consignment stores in town to check out their selection of maternity clothes. And that was laughable. There was nothing there that was even remotely a possibility, unless I want to wear highwaters for the rest of my pregnancy. Which I don't.

I finally ended up at Motherhood Maternity. And I've looked there before but am aware that they don't have long/tall pants. But I marched right up to the saleswoman and told her that I knew they didn't carry long or tall sizes but I have long legs and needed some pants. This wonderful girl- the most helpful salesperson I've met in years (because when do you ever find one of those anymore?)- said she'd walk through the store and pull down all the pants that run longer in the legs and bring them to my room. And she did.

I wanted to hug her.

And I left the store with THREE pairs of pants. Success!

I even tried them on for Mark when I got home and he said they were cute. And he was even okay with the amount of money I spent to get those cute pants.

I'll likely still be wearing pj pants around the house (and we don't go out much, so that's handy), but now? When I want to leave the house? I can look presentable.

And can I just say? I LOVE the fact that God is growing a baby within my belly big enough to where I need some maternity clothes. Oh, and- for the past few weeks? I can feel this little one moving inside me. I am so, so, SO grateful.