Saturday, November 20, 2010

Misadventures in Maternity Pants Shopping

The past few weeks, I've started gaining some weight...and noticeably. I've had a love-hate relationship with this weight gain. For one thing, it makes me happy because it makes the pregnancy more real for me. With no major symptoms during my first trimester, its been hard to believe that I actually am pregnant (even with seeing all the ultrasound pics). But now that I have a little baby bump growing, I can tell he's really in there! On the other hand, my belly is not the only thing err, expanding. My trunk has been gathering a bit more junk which has caused a few wardrobe malfunctions. As a result, my rubber-banding-it-instead-of-zipping-and-buttoning-it method is now obsolete. 

So, with my drawstring linen pants now being the only bottoms I have that are big enough in diameter, it was time to go shopping for some real maternity pants. Lucky for me (and not so much for him), Al was on hand for me to drag along to the shopping spree. The first store we went to was Mothercare. It was hard for me to distract myself away from the cute baby clothes but I was on a mission. I desperately needed some pants that didn't require an antelope mating dance to get into. 

Mothercare had a pretty good selection of jeans, but when I started looking through them I realized I had no idea what size I am now. And further, I didn't even know how maternity pants were sized! So naturally I went for the smallest size I found, which was a 10. Ok, so I know that I've started widening in some areas, but no way did I move up 8 sizes. Now remember that there's no fitting rooms to try on clothes for women here in Saudi (which made this whole expedition even more difficult), but even just by eyeballing it I knew I'd have to multiply myself in order to fill out those pants. Al and I went through rack after rack of maternity jeans trying to find a better fit but with no luck....so I started panicking. What if all the stores are like this? What if I can't find a size that fits me? I'm finally shedding my stick-figure and I still can't find pants that fit right? What am I supposed to go pant-less?? THIS. IS. NOT. FAIR!!!!!!!

While I was throwing my mental temper tantrum, my more resourceful husband had found other types of pants for me to look through. I found a pair of black maternity leggings which I thought would be cute with some long sweaters and boots in the winter. They looked like they could fit, and the sizes were much simpler to work with...small, medium, large. See? Now why can't they make everything like that? (That was a rhetorical question). So I came out with a small pair of black leggings from Mothercare, some relief, and hope that they will actually fit once I get home to try them on. 


We went through a couple of other stores with no luck. Not because of the size issue, but because they didn't carry maternity clothes at all. I had no idea which stores had or didn't have maternity clothes here so that was another problem. I heard that H&M had a small maternity section, and with it being my favorite normal people clothes store, I had high hopes that I'd find something cute that would fit me there. 


I immediately felt better with the first pair of pants I picked up. Cute grey corduroys that actually looked like they could fit perfectly (size 36 in European sizes...can't we use some kind of universal sizing system?). Then I found a 38 which looked like it would give me some more room to inevitably grow. But dammit, I couldn't try them on to see which fit better! Solution: buy both. I had to try them on at home anyway, and I didn't want to risk getting the wrong size then going back and not finding the right size. I also found a pair of jeans, some dark khaki pants, and some comfy black pants that I called my "overseas pants" because they looked comfortable enough to travel overseas in. I was sooo happy and felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders (cause obviously it hadn't been lifted off my butt or belly) and Al was happy because that meant that this shopping trip was over with hopes that my nagging would be over with it. I was still nervous about going home to try all the pants on, but was confident I had done well.


Turns out, I got some mad eyeballing skills because all the pants I bought fit great, and I was right in thinking that the size 38 corduroys fit bitter because they'd still fit even if I continued to gather some more junk (which I will). So I only have to return one pair (the size 36 corduroys). So far I'm doing ok with the tops that I have, but I'll probably have to start buying some maternity tops within the next month or so...so stay tuned for that shopping trip adventure! I think Al will probably purposely try to be out of town on a job for that one...hehe :)

 

4 comments:

  1. you are SO right- we need universal sizing systems! glad you finally found some fat pants :) i'll check out h&m mama/bebe here too and let you know if i find anything cute!

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  2. Jim thinks the no dressing rooms for women thing is funny and would like for that to happen over here, be kinda like a walmart style just try on clothes right at the rack.

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  3. Noura is not changing her 'about me' section to the first person no matter how crazy Jim thinks she is.

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  4. Pictures of you and your newly found "fat pants" are needed, for real. I am having a hard time picturing this : ). Miss ya!!!

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