My new postpartum body poses some fashion challenges too.. For example my best feature used to be my stomach. Yeah, not so much anymore. And it’s not that I haven’t lost most if not all of the baby “weight” because I have (for the most part), it’s just that my stomach poofs out now. I think it’s mostly actually ab muscles that were stretched beyond their breaking point and I haven’t had the time or energy to try to tighten back up now, but I’m sure there’s some extra skin and maybe fat there too.  The point is, it takes a little – ok a lot – more creative camouflaging these days.

80’s fashion to the rescue!!

Postpartum people rejoice, for we have been blessed by the gods of fashion: What can be better for poochy stomachs than the currently in style 80’s big shirt and tight pants look?

Pre-pregnancy I was NEVER a big shirt kind of girl, in fact, Hanes boys large white undershirts were a staple of my wardrobe. Yes boys size, not men! I was rarely without my midriff peaking through somewhere.  But now, how times have changed.. the 80’s big shirts are just what the doctor ordered to hide that problem area and – dare I say it – even feel a little fashionable in the process.

**This post will partly be an homage to H&M because that is where I buy 90% of my clothes.. if you don’t have an H&M in your neck of the woods I apologize!**

Here are a few examples of pieces that have worked for me. H&M doesn’t have an online store with product images so I had to take pictures of my wrinkled clothes (remember, I am living out of a suitcase!) draped over my bed.  You’ll have to use your imagination and just trust me when I say they look better on!

This is a long dress/shirt.  It is loose & tight at all the right places, i.e tighter around the leg/hip area and loose in the stomach area. looks great with black leggings!

I sort of lied about the big shirt/tight pants thing.. big shirts also look good with wide legged light fabric breezy pants like these:

Closeup to show you the super comfy drawstring top that feels like sweats when you have them on.. perfect for the first “real” pants after maternity pants transition:

This is an organic cotton “T-shirt” that I got for $5 at the summer sale they have going on right now! It’s soft, big and has a cute print:

Cute horse print shirt on sale for $10:

I have a picture of me wearing the horse shirt that I took this morning before I left for work.. clearly I have not mastered the art of self portraits!

And here’s one where you can see the pants better:

I’m going to let you in on  a little secret… those are h&m maternity pants! I am still wearing them because they are so comfortable and they are the only skinny leg jeans that look good on me.  I also have been wearing and loving their wide leg jeans.. the only non maternity jeans I have worn since giving birth.

So, weather you are a new mom or even pregnant now, H&M has something for you. And don’t forget about the babes either – just like his mama,  a good portion of Jasper’s wardrobe is from H&M baby!

For example this cute little organic cotton surfer t-shirt that was under $5:

Where else can you get organic cotton anything for under $5?  Plus, they don’t skimp on the details. for example, you’ll notice they have the snaps on the side of the neck.  Most of their pants have that expandable button/elastic so that you get a ton of use out of them.. Jasper wore his H&M corduroy pants for almost 6 months!!

Now I want to hear from you. How has your postpartum body changed your style? Do you find yourself buying the same clothes just in bigger sizes or are have you been forced to change your style altogether? Where are you shopping these days?

I guess he thought I was showing too much cleavage. Actually his exact words were “You’re not sexy Ari, you’re pregnant Ari!”.

Even he knew that one came out badly and hopefully not how he meant it, but I changed the shirt anyway that night.

But yesterday I decided to wear it anyway because A) I’m mad at Jeff right now and B) It’s only going to fit my belly for about another week or so.

I took pictures because the shirt is one of the ones I blogged about from Forever21.. it’s the bright orange one, but obviously in an off white color.

Without further ado, me sporting the “Your not sexy” shirt at almost 30 weeks.

Look at that side view, I can’t believe I still have 10 weeks of getting bigger, where will it all go??

In other news, I had my first appointment with the midwives this week. I went to the Open Door Community clinic where judging by the whole procedure they aren’t too used to treating people with private insurance. The assistant even asked me why I was there, did I lose my insurance? No, I just want to deliver at Phelps Hospital and have a midwife attended birth!

The clinic is in Ossining, NY about 5 minutes from Phelps hospital which is not in Tarrytown as I’ve been saying but rather in Sleepy Hollow. How cool is that? Jasper will be born in Sleepy Hollow, so romantic sounding… Much better than “Suffern” which is where my ex OB delivers and incidentally the subject of ridicule a sex and the city episode. Remember when Aidan makes carrie go up to his country house? It was in Suffern. (It’s also the town where I grew up!)

Now that I have to go in every two weeks the 30 minute drive is a little bit of a hassle, but will hopefully be worth it. Just keep your fingers crossed that I don’t go into labor during rush hour or I may give birth on the Tappan Zee bridge!

I love you Ariana – I have a trip to Ibiza in 3 weeks and was starting to despair
about the swimsuit situation – I was worried my National Geographic centrefold body
would gross all my friends out. Sadly we don’t have Target in the UK – but I have a
friend there who is shipping many of your recommendations to me. The swim shorts
are a real boon!

That inspired me to write about some of the finds I made at a recent trip to Forever 21.. (Kitty, perhaps your friend has one in her area?)

For anyone that doesn’t have a forever 21 in their local mall, I didn’t realize this until recently but they also sell online! Here are some of the cute tops that also work great as maternity wear. (For me going up one size from normal seems to work well).

Alice Tunic   $22.80

Embroidered Woven Tunic $22.80

Draped V-neck Tunic – $24.80

Embroidered Smocked Tunic – $11.50!!

Embroidered Woven Tunic – $22.80

And there are many, many more on their website.

Enjoy!

Last Sunday I spent 7 hours at the mall. I actually had sore muscles in my legs and feet that evening! Pre pregnancy I had a really hard time finding clothes that fit me because I had small boobs (A cup) , but wide shoulders and – thanks to years of weight lifting- a wide chest. That meant that a lot of tops that fit my shoulders and chest were saggy in the boob area. (I also had small hips and butt.) Ah, those were the days..

But anyway, my new large B/small C boob size has catapulted me into the range of the more average American woman I guess, because I had a much much easier time finding clothes to wear while pregnant than I ever did pre pregnancy – despite my large belly! And I have all the shopping bags to prove it.

I thought I’d share with you here some of the items I will be stuffing into my suitcase as I head towards Miami tomorrow.

Most of these items are from – believe it or not – the Target Swimwear section – I only had to supplement a little bit from the Old Navy maternity section, but I’ll get to that later.

From the Target Swimwear Cover Ups section:

Xhilaration Green Striped Pocket Dress – $16.99
I actually got this in an orangey pink color that isn’t shown online.

Merona Smocked Cover Up Dresses – $17.99.
They don’t advertise these as such, but they can be worn as a skirt or a dress! The shirred top part is super stretchy and fits very comfortably over a baby bump. Also, this picture is deceiving.. the green strap isn’t part of the dress, it must be part of a bathing suit the model is wearing underneath. The halter tie actually just comes as a little bow that allows you to tighten the shirred part of the dress around your boobs or your waist if you are wearing it as a skirt. I didn’t even realize it was supposed to be a halter tie when I bought this in the store! So basically you are getting three looks for the price of one.

Merona 4 in 1 Skirt Dress Cover Up (comes in other colors as well) – $17.99

This picture demonstrates the convertible skirt/dress much better. Its brilliant! This comes in many other colors, some of them very light, but because the rayon jersey fabric is so soft and light, its rather see through in the lighter colors which is why I chose it in brown. It’s super soft and comfy.

Merona Cover Up Crop Pant – $17.99
These are perhaps my favorite find.. they are sooo comfortable, and versatile as you can wear them on their own with a top or also underneath a short baby doll dress for extra leg coverage. The top is stretchy enough to work great with your bump, plus they can sit low on your hips just under your belly. I can see myself wearing these all summer long (I got them in medium for now, but also large for later in the summer in case I’m a house by then!)

I also got a another fab wrap dress from the swim cover up rack, but it isn’t on target’s website, so I can’t show you. So I’ll move onto swimwear..

Bathing Suits

Those two words are enough to strike fear into the heart of any woman, but with my new unfamiliar and lumpy body it was enough to give me heart palpitations. Lucky the tops all fit and looked nice, but it was the bottoms that made me want to shatter the dressing room mirrors. I didn’t want the maternity swim skirt look, and I certainly am not pulling off regular bikini bottoms, so I decided instead I’ll wear board shorts!

I found these more expensive ones at macy’s before I realized target also had some for half the price.. so of course I got both!

Roxy Board shorts, purchased from Macys – $34.

I already had a turqouise and a brown bikini top that I can wear these with, but I also got this cute halter swim top from target:

Mossimo Black Olive Halter Swim Top – $17.99

Here is the second set of swim shorts I got:

Xhilaration Black Boardshort - $14.99

I got these in a large so that they can sit low beneath my belly and also are much more baggy and less form fitting than they look on the the picture above!

OK, so now that I have most of my casual cruise/spring/summer wear courtesy of the Target swim section, lets move on to Old Navy where I scored the (slightly) more sophisticated pieces of my new wardrobe..

From the regular (non-maternity) section of Old Navy, I picked up this top:

Women’s Shirred Tube Top – $14.99 from Old Navy – also available in solid colors.

Not a maternity top, but there is lots of extra fabric in the stomach area and it works JUST as well if not better than the maternity version (that I also bought!) below:

Maternity Banded Tanks from Old Navy – $16.50
Its hard to tell from the picture, but this style looks really elegant and pretty, particularly when paired with pants and heels.

Speaking of pants, these are my new favorites:

Maternity Low-Rise Linen Pants from Old Navy – $32.50
I consider white linen pants a staple for a spring wardrobe, so I was SO excited to find a maternity version. These fit like a dream and just may be the only outfit that makes me look slender!

I also bought two other pairs of light weight pants that were on sale for $20 each, but they are not on the ON website.

Forever21 

I made a quick stop at Forever21, which, I must admit I have an entirely unhealthy attachment to for a 34 year old. They always have the cutest dresses, and fortunately the empire waisted style is perfect maternity wear. It was the end of the day or I probably would have stocked up more, but this is all I had energy for:

Crinkled Plaid Halter Dress – $24.80 at Forever21

Mimi Maternity

Now for my only purchase from a maternity shop, I got these Convertible cargo pants:

Under belly straight-leg twill convertable pant – $29.99 Mimi Maternity
I always had a pair of army green cargo short/pants in my spring wardrobe so jumped when I found these. I’m glad I only bought one item from a maternity store, because as you probably know their return policies SUCK.

Accessories 

I rounded out my purchases with a few accessories. (I found an adorable pair of flats at the Nine West Outlet, but I can’t find a picture of them online.)

If you haven’t seen the Javovich-Hawke stuff at target, it is probably my favorite GO designer stuff they’ve featured so far, but alas I can’t fit into any of it.. So I bought a purse instead!

Jovovich-Hawk for Target® Cross-Dye Linen Tote Bag – Navy – $29.99
It’s much cuter in person. But my favorite thing about it is that the ring handles are big enough to fit over your shoulder, that and the fact that there is tons of room inside.

Lastly, I picked up this pair of flip-flops:

Mossimo® Gilda Wedge Sandals – $12.99
Nothing overly exciting, they just fill my two flip flop requirements: They are not flat (otherwise all my pants are too long) and the part that goes between your toes is soft, not plastic. Otherwise I find that it takes a long time for me to develop callouses to break them in and I end up in a lot of pain.

So that’s it, I don’t know if this has been helpful, but my hope is that I will have been able to spare you an hour or two of mall time! Also, I made a list of all the stuff I got at Target for easy browsing: http://www.target.com/lists/1CVI3ZDFIDXZI

Just keep in mind that everything that is on that list is a small by default, so don’t just add it to your cart without changing sizes if need be. Also, it says several of those items are unavailable online, but they were (obviously) available in the store.

Happy Spring!