Dressing the bump, Part 3

Since I did a post way back in August about how I first covered, then celebrated the bump, I figured I should do a follow up post about how I am handling it now that it is pretty substantial.  Before I got pregnant, I always envisioned that by the time I was this big I would be rocking empire waisted jersey dresses and maxi skirts, but alas, the epic temperatures of late have necessitated much more significant layering.  So it has been a bit of a challenge and my look tends to be rather one note lately, but I feel like that one note is pretty solid, so there's that.  I took a picture of my daily outfit over the past few days to show how this overly tall/massively pregnant girl has been covering herself and keeping the cold at bay.

First up, a work outfit.  This sweater is non-maternity and one of the few that I wore last year that I have been able to repurpose.  This is because it used to end around my thighs as a loose, dolman sleeve piece that I love.  However now, it just baaaarely fits over the bump.  The pants are a maternity pair that I bought new from Old Navy for $10 on a massive online sale right before Thanksgiving.  They are a different brownish/khaki color that is hard to work with, so I don't know that I would buy regular pants in this color, but for that price on new pants cut long I couldn't pass it up.  To cover the wide waist band at the top (since the sweater couldn't) I'm wearing a maternity black camisole.  It's fairly ubiquitous in my outfits these days, as you'll see in later shots.  I added a super cute pashmina that Ashley gave me for Christmas as a balance to the bump, and am wearing knee high brown boots below where you can see.  I think it's safe to say I wear these brown boots about 80% of the time since they zip up the side, which allows me to take them on and off independently (hussah!).

Next is what I wore to the second day of the yoga birth workshop.  The top and yoga pants are both maternity and both were acquired second hand.  The pants are actually "a pea in the pod" brand and nice enough that I wore them with a long maternity top to work a couple of times before the belly got too big for the top to cover the waistband.  They are insanely comfortable and definitely my favorite item.  One thing I'd like to point out about this picture is the fact that this is a maternity top, yet it is not long enough to cover me without the black camisole underneath.  This necessitates the following series of outfits...

AKA, wearing sweater dresses as a sweater.  In all of the shots below, my top is meant to be a dress on normal people.  In the first one, it is a small Old Navy long sleeve T-shirt dress, yet it only just covers the full maternity paneled jeans I'm wearing.  I tried to balance the bump with a flowy cardigan that I used to be able to belt.  To be fair, I still could, but it looks all stretched and crazy when I do that now, so I just left it open.  I added a long necklace to try to break up all the monotonous neutrality.

In this one, I am wearing a dark green sweater dress from TJ Maxx that I bought new, thinking I can still wear it post-baby.  I actually bought it with the intention of wearing it as a holiday sweater, as it had the right color and an interesting side detail (hard to see in this picture, but it's a little dark brown belt buckle looking thing right at empire waist level).  Again I'm wearing it over jeans, one of the two pairs I originally had that still fit me.  They are one of two pairs of long jeans that I miraculously found at Goodwill; the other, sadly, no longer fits over my hips and slid down quite often.  I'm again wearing the brown boots with this outfit.

Finally, today I am wearing a sweater dress purchased and worn last year.  This was my Thanksgiving sweater this year because it is a nice maroon color.  I added the skinny silver belt as a "pregnancy indicator" belt to break up the long stretch of maroon.  I wore one of these pretty often in the second and early third trimester to distinguish my belly and to declare "I'm pregnant, not in love with donuts!!"  The pants are my warmest pants, actually a pre-pregnancy pair, necessitated by the super freezing day.  They are completely, utterly unzipped and stretched to the limit in the front, but I'm wearing them over maternity tights, which has helped to keep them up.  Luckily, since it's a sweater dress, it's long enough to cover the whole mess.  A long sleeve, black maternity shirt bought second-hand is keeping my skin safe from the scratchy wool.

So that's a sampling of the outfits that I have been wearing lately.  As the weeks have progressed my selection has decreased, but I have a few items that have sustained me.

1) Two pairs of maternity jeans, each bought at Goodwill, one long, one not, for $5 each

2) Three maternity tank tops, two bought new at Old Navy for $8 each, one on loan from Sandi for $0

3) Four wrap dresses bought and worn pre-pregnancy that I throw over leggings for church

4) Three pairs of non-maternity leggings that are fitting less and less well, bought on nomorerack.com for $17 for all three

5) Four previously owned skinny belts of varying color/pattern to modify boring tops and to give me shape

6) Five sweater dresses that should be wearable after baby, ranging in price from $16 to $30, bought at TJ Maxx and the Banana Republic Outlet

7) One pair of brownish/khaki long maternity pants bought from Old Navy for $10

Mix and match those, and you can get an idea of how a tall girl with a giant belly has been getting by in this cold, cold weather.  Luckily I have been able to wear my same coats from last year by just leaving the last button unbuttoned.  I have had to stop wearing my water-resistant, fleece-lined coat because it zips up, but Jeremy has been sharing his with me, which does still zip up.  Since I only have at most two weeks left, I'm feeling like this will be my story until the end.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to figure out how to be tall, pregnant, and dressed, all at the same time!