It's Official

I guess I really am pregnant now - earlier today, I made my first purchase from an actual maternity store.

I had some time to kill this afternoon before Shrike was ready to meet me for dinner, and she reminded me that I had been talking about wanting a belly band of some sort, and suggested that I go poke around at the outlet stores while I waited for her.

So I did.

First, I did some looking but not buying at a couple of baby stores. Then I did some sample-nibbling but not looking at Le Gourmet Chef (just looking for more samples!) and finally, I found my way to Motherhood maternity store.

I looked at some shorts and shirts, but couldn't bring myself to pay even their clearance prices, knowing that I can get the same thing for much less at a yard sale or consignment shop.

I ended up just buying one package of what I hope are granny-panties (to pull up over my belly, rather than landing right in the middle and rolling down), and a "belly sock."

The idea behind the belly sock is that you can wear it over not-quite-buttoning-anymore regular pants, or still-too-big maternity pants, to hold them up, or over ugly-panel maternity pants to cover them up, or either over or under your pants, to hide your naked belly when your shirt rides up.

Mine is primarily for that hide-my-naked-belly reason right now, but I'm sure it will serve all the purposes eventually.

Also, unless it gets too stretched out before that (which is certainly possible) I think I can also wear it post-partum for the same clothing-size reasons, to hold things in a bit (hell, I should've bought one years ago!) and to cover my naked belly when my shirt's hiked up for nursing.

(Naked Boobs: Tough shit. If you don't like them, don't look. Naked Belly: Noooo! Don't looook!")

This part was kind of funny, but I'm not quite sure whether I'm happy about it or not:

One of the salesgirls had helped me to find both the belly sock and the panties, and I'd discussed fit and such, so there was no doubt that I was buying them for myself.

Later, I was standing in line to check out behind a couple of girls who were actual pregnant-looking-ladies, feeling like a bit of an imposter.

As one was checking out, the clerk asked her due date (to send coupons - woo-hoo, although I think it sounded like most will be for formula and diapers), and she said December 1.

Holy cow - I'm a week pregnanter than her and she's huge, compared to me! (Strictly in a pregnant-belly sense.)

The girl who'd waited on me asked the third customer if she knows the sex of her baby, and she said, "No, but I'm about 20 weeks, so I will find out soon."

Yikes - she's not as big as first lady, but still definitely bigger than me - and I'm more than a month pregnanter than her!

Then the first woman said that she's having a girl, and when nobody asked me, I volunteered that, "I'm having a girl, too!"

The salesgirl said, "You know already?!?"

"Well, I'm twenty-five weeks. . . ."

"No way!"

"You're tiny!"

"I can barely tell you're pregnant!"

I kind of mumbled something rather apologetic about "Well, the baby is a bit small" and "I think I'm just filling out all over."

(According to one of the moms at work: "I can tell you're having a girl, because of the way you're filling out all over." Gee thanks.)

On the one hand, it was a little bit funny, and kind of nice to be referred to as "tiny" (that hasn't happened in several months) but on the other hand, I'm twenty-fucking-five weeks pregnant, when the hell is someone going to be able to look at me and know?!?

Oh, and speaking of Peeper's size, after my business meeting at the OldWorkTown Center, which is right next door to Dr. Peri's office, I popped in over there to see if I could get an answer to the one question that I forgot to ask on Wednesday - how big she actually is - we talked about percentile and such, but I didn't get an estimated weight.

I told the receptionist that "I was in the neighborhood, and had a question, which isn't really important, but if you could maybe leave someone a note, or if it's something you could find out or . . . ."

(By then I was feeling dumb for even being there.)

She opened a file drawer, pulled my chart right out, opened it up, and said, "Here you go - she's in the 26th percentile, and weighs 1 pound, 6 ounces."

Oh, well that was easy!

Also, very reassuring, in that all my weekly pregnancy updates for 25 weeks are saying "Your baby weighs about a pound and a half now. . . " (and "your uterus is the size of a soccer ball") and she's only a couple of ounces shy of that.

Now, if only all my weekly pregnancy updates could decide whether I've got 0.5, 1.5 or 2.5 weeks left until I (and my not-pregnant-looking belly) am in the third trimester.