Confronting the Pillow

I still fit in my regular clothes, kind of. Everything is snug, and some stuff hasn't fit in awhile (like my jeans). But the existence of Belly Bands, nylon swaths of fabric that go over your unbuttoned, unzipped pants and keep everything from falling down, has let me wear my jeans for weeks now without anyone knowing any different. Soon enough, though, belly bands aren't going to cut it. So I went to the Motherhood Maternity outlet in Waterloo, NY, to find some new clothes, and there I discovered... the Pillow.

The Pillow is found in all of the dressing rooms, and you hold it to your stomach and then pull a velcro strap around your back and velcro it into place. And ta-da! You have just added two to three months to your torso. This is a great idea, because it's difficult to try on clothing you will be growing into without knowing how big you're going to be. And based on the Pillow - I am going to be absolutely massive.

At first I was strapping the Pillow on too low, and nothing fit correctly. Then with a little assistance from a store clerk, I correctly positioned the pillow and suddenly my try-ons all looked like... maternity clothes. And... I looked REALLY pregnant. Whoa.

I asked the sales clerk whether the reported Pillow-size of two to three months REALLY meant two to three months, and she said yes, I should count on being that size by New Year's. "And then I'll grow bigger?" I asked. She laughed and said, "Of course. When is your due date?" I told her, April 25. And she laughed again and said, "You might be making a second trip out here in January."

Or instead, I might just take to wearing my bathrobe everywhere. Except my bathrobe isn't even going to fit, much less my winter coat. The pregnancy manuals suggest wearing your male partner's button-down shirts, but I think by the end of this month I'll already be bigger around than Dave. What a conundrum!

So I bought two pairs of pants with the stretchy stomach inserts that grow with you, and a couple of shirts that are stretchy as well, and I decided to hope for the best, the best being that these clothes will last longer than two to three months. Because you never know... maybe the Pillow is wrong.