Monday, January 15, 2007

Waisting space

It's not like my first pregnancy was so very long ago, but I don't remember hearing about the Bella Band when I was expecting Z. I did the usual trick of extending the waistband of my pre-pregnancy jeans with a strategically wrapped hair elastic, but once my belly had grown an inch or two, it was up to me to buy bigger clothes or make the switch to maternity pants.

Anyway, the hair elastics quit doing the trick for me about a week ago, so I packed up all my regular clothes this weekend. Then, depressed with how sloppy my too-big maternity pants looked, I made one last call to Oak Park's Majamas store. And low and behold, they'd finally received a shipment of Bella Bands. I stopped in, bought one in black with the gift certificate Josh gave me for Chanukah and prompted returned home to unpack all my regular pants.

I didn't really believe the elastic fabric would effectively smooth out the bumps and zippers of an unbuttoned, unzipped fly, but it does just that. The packaging also claims using the band will help you "wear fun maternity outfits a little sooner," which is a pretty humorous sentence to anyone who has ever worn maternity clothes. But I can see how the band can be used to convert those under the belly waistbands that tend to hang a little to low on us small-hipped gals into more securely positioned over the belly garments.