Destination Maternity

If you haven’t yet seen my ill-fitting parka post yet (scroll down), you might not be aware of just how terrible the weather in NYC has been this week.  It’s as if Mother Nature decided that she was being just a bit TOO nice to us and needed to compensate by hitting us with a roundhouse kick to the throat of snow, freezing rain, hail, thunder, windstorms, and torrential downpours. All in one day. 

So you can imagine how elated I am that I’m escaping this ridiculous weatherman’s nightmare and headed to sunny MIAMI, where the white sand and sunshine has beckoned me for the weekend.  Elated, that was, until I realized that this means a swimsuit is going to be required. 

So I turned to my closet and pulled out a one-piece Diesel swimsuit that I’ve had for years. It actually didn’t look too bad! Except for one thing- there’s absolutely no bra in the thing, so my now most glorious asset (my new cleavage!) ended up getting smooshed flat and did not receive the glory the “girls” so rightfully deserve.

No problem, I thought- I’ll just pick up a cute maternity swimsuit! I’m sure I’ll get more use out of it, since I’ll be pregnant through the summer. 

I walked over to 5^th Avenue and found myself at a combination “Pea in the Pod”, “Destination Maternity” and “Motherhood” shopping center. I thought this would be easy: in and out and I’m done. Boy, was I wrong. 

The salespeople were friendly, offered me a water, and asked how they could help me. I told them I just needed a swimsuit- a tankini, preferably. A salesperson pointed me towards the swimsuits.  The “swimsuits” were a collection of polka dotted, florals, and pastel  shapeless blobs on plastic hangers. Gross. I dug around and found one that was blue tie-dye…semi decent, I thought. The problem is, the tops and bottoms ALL come as a set in ONE size. So although I wanted a Medium top and a large bottom, I couldn’t mix and match. That’s ridiculous! 

I headed to the fitting room, wrestled it over my belly and hauled up the bottoms over my hips (which as Shakira said, certainly DON’T lie.) The top was a bit too big, and the bottoms were a bit too snug.  While I was in the fitting room, the saleslady brought me some “suggestion outfits”, to try on.  These outfits were HIDEOUS! Everything was blousy and tented, and made so cheaply it was frightening to see that the pricetags were up to $200! I had no idea that maternity clothes look so dumpy and matronly! I thought they had come a long way to try and look like regular clothes…NOPE!

The salesperson brought me 5 more swimsuits to try on, and I tried on just the top of the next one before almost vomiting in my mouth. It was like a giant navy blue tent that came down almost to my knees, with a dumb little BOW between the boobs! Who would wear something like this?  I finally was honest with the salesperson and said, “Listen- I really don’t even want to buy ANY maternity clothes, and I’m only getting a swimsuit today. Honestly, I think all these clothes are ugly, and definitely not my style at all.” I ended up buying the tie-dye swimsuit, which was definitely the best out of the options I was given, and only spent a cool $30, since it was on sale.

The saleslady laughed about my comment and I think she kind of agreed with me. The funny thing to me was how many women were standing in the fitting rooms just GUSHING about how wonderful these bags…I mean CLOTHES were. I even heard the woman beside me telling her friend about how after the baby’s born, she can just take these jeans to a tailor and have them CUT OUT the maternity panel so she can keep wearing them as regular jeans! Seriously, lady? Ugh. 

So laugh at me if you like, but I am going to do my bestest to breeze through this pregnancy WITHOUT having to spend ridiculous amounts of money on dumb maternity clothes. I’ve been wearing my dresses from Diesel and AllSaints with high waisted leggings from American Apparel, and I’m doing just fine! This weekend, I’ll wear long maxi dresses from Forever 21 ($12 dresses! Score!) and stretchy jersey dresses with leggings.  

And of course, I’ll look amazing, as always : )