At 18-1/2 weeks, I’ve officially retired my pre-preggie wardrobe. I’ve been wearing my pair of “fat jeans” in comfort up until this week, when I discovered that zipping them up would require me to suck in — which, honestly, isn’t possible anymore. I suppose I could still wear them with a bella band and live in denial for a few more weeks, but I figure that I might as well relent and embrace my new preggie body. I also stopped wearing my cotton, button-down dress shirts to work last week when I found my protruding tummy straining against the fabric and looking quite unkempt. Hubby, in his ever-diplomatic way, said gently, “I think it’s time you start wearing your maternity clothes. I’ll take you shopping to buy more clothes, if you want.”

So, today after Hubby came home from work, we hit Motherhood Maternity in Waikele. Hubby is my favorite shopping companion. He has a knack for choosing items that I would never have considered myself that end up looking great! He gives me objective feedback and is never insulting when he critiques an outfit. This is particularly helpful since I might often rationalize a poor fit if I like the color/style, but Hubby will gently talk me out of it. Hubby is a man’s man, so you’d never think that he was a closet fashionista, but he is.

I left with a few new pieces, nice additions to my growing maternity wardrobe. When I got home, I did a quick purge of my closet and dresser and filled a trash bag with items to donate.

It’s the first step to embracing the baby bump.