Maternity wardrobe

I won't kid myself into thinking I was super trendy or anything during pregnancy, but I thought I would share some thoughts on my experience with clothing myself during the last 9 months.

I was lucky to be at my biggest stages during summer. Thus, less clothing was needed. But January through May, I was working as a substitute teacher. I got by with 2 pairs of maternity pants (thanks to my generous mother-in-law!), some of my old pants that had bigger waistbands, 2 maternity tank tops and several of my old shirts that were a little large. I have always been one to wear looser rather than tighter, so that helped me for several months. (It will be interesting to see how much I stretched those out once I am back to normal size! If I ever get back to "normal!") I also made a maternity belly band that helped for a while too! (Here is the tutorial I used. Super easy.)

In the end, I only ended up purchasing 4 new tops. Two maternity tops from Old Navy, one from Target, and one longer, normal size shirt from H&M. I also got a maternity dress from Old Navy that I loved! I wore maxis a lot too. One that I already had from Old Navy as well as a new one from Forever 21 and Gap. The two new ones weren't maternity, but their empire waists helped to accommodate my belly! I purchased two pairs of maternity shorts, one from Old Navy and one from Gap. I love love loved them!

Other helpful things were yoga pants and yoga pant-type skirts. I have this jersey-knit skirt from Old Navy that I have had forever. The waistband is like yoga pants so I could unfold it over my belly. Perfect! (Also, they have a ton of colors of these right now and they are on sale!) Also one DownEast skirt came in handy too with its wide elastic waistband (similar one here).

Basically I purchased only 6 new pieces of "maternity" clothing. So I did a lot of laundry :) And everyone's situation is different. Women who are working would need to buy a good bit more I assume.  We were lucky that I didn't really have to the last few months of my pregnancy. And by the time I was 9 months pregnant, my belly was hanging out of anything I wore anyway. And nothing was better than going nude under a jersey robe! ;) But I did have to get dressed at some point during the day so the above-mentioned clothing did come in handy! :)

P.S. While we are on the topic of maternity clothing, does anyone out there agree with me that the Hatch Collection that is getting so much attention in the blogosphere is just plain frumpy? Most of their items just look like sacks to me!