The clothes make the woman

I don't have to tell any woman who has been pregnant of the sour taste that fills your mouth when you see this in the mirror:

Since your pants no longer fit, you pull on a pair of sweats, or yoga pants. Since the idea of wearing a thong is anathema to you, and your now bulging ass no longer fits in your pre-pregnancy underwear, your VPL becomes something between comedy and obscenity.

You hastily switch to a pair of maternity pants, but since they don't fit right, they fall down the first time you sit down and you know you can't wear them out of the house. So, the tragi-porni-comic yoga pants return.

Next you pull on a t-shirt. An old sorority shirt, or a race t-shirt. It's long enough to cover your waistband, but not your rear, especially since your somewhat bulging (but not yet obviously pregnant) belly is pulling it forward. You flinch at the sight of what appear to be love handles (though you know it is merely your abdomen accomodating your swelling uterus) as you inspect the view from the side.

No force on earth could make you desperate enough to inspect the view from the rear.

You give a last, longing glance to your dainty high heels, knowing that if they could speak, they'd berate you for even imagining pairing them with the slovenly yoga-pants and t-shirt combo. Then you reach for your flip-flops, once a favorite pair of weekend shoes, now your apparent jailors. They seem to grin up at you, saying, of course you picked me, with my stains from your dirty feet and my soles chewed by your puppy. You had to pick me, you had no choice.

You reach for your purse--no, it doesn't match your flip flops, and you are beyond caring. The tubby stranger in the mirror is not the real you.

So stop wearing her clothes, get your ass to the mall and buy some cute maternity clothes that actually fit. Don't be afraid to buy maternity underwear and a pair of jeans that reminds you of your pre-pregnancy days. While you're at it, skip the t-shirts and buy some stylish, feminine maternity blouses, be they the earth-mother type, or the career-girl type, they will make you feel so much better about yourself, and you deserve this much.

You've dealt with nausea, constipation, hemmorrhoids, varicose veins (only more of those in the future, duckie), splitting headaches, food aversions, food cravings, and cramps that would make your period feel like summer vacation. You deserve to look pretty, you know. You owe it to your body, which is working incredibly hard to produce new life, and you owe it to your spirit, and more than anything, you owe it to the woman you were before you got yourself knocked up. She'll never be the same, but she's still in there, and she'd like to see you taking care of yourself.