ON PREGNANCY FACE, PREGNANCY ARMS, PREGNANCY ELBOWS, AND FEELING PRETTY ANYWAY, OR AT LEAST TRYING TO

This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I'll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories (projects/ideas/etc) with you over there. Stay tuned for more details!

your heroine, 8 months pregnant, yes, in a bathroom.

so, this is weird. i know a few guys who've confessed to me that they find pregnant women really sexy. now, none of these guys were dudes i was ever particularly impressed with anyway, and so in each case that weird details basically sealed it for me. weirdos. 

that said, know what's really important? feeling sexy while pregnant, damn it.

still eight months, different bathroom!

some of us are just the types of girls to feel sexy no matter what (not me). a lot of women i know say they've never felt sexier than they did while pregnant (not me either). know how i felt while pregnant? i felt chubby. and a little lost trying to accommodate my new lumpy proportions. i wish it weren't so, i mean, i wanted to get pregnant for a long, long time, but there it is. but since i had worked so hard to get to that point where i could have the pleasure of feeling chubby and unattractive, i figured i at least was going to learn to make the best of it. and, i think, i did.

here a few things i learned in my nine months of dressing a pregnant body:

• right around 8 months, you start to look really good in skinny jeans. i had never considered skinny jeans an option for my body type (pear! pear! pear!), but under that kind of belly, any pair of legs look slender by comparison. and these days, with all these cute colored skinny jeans...
• maternity clothes aren't necessarily doing you any favors (especially if you're under five-foot-two), so keep an open mind and try to shop your usual stores differently. my whole pregnancy i lived in forever 21 stretch skinnies (one size up, low rise), and boyfriend jeans (a belly band will be your best friend here), and stretchy cotton tee shirts. i carried huck in my back, which was lucky for my wardrobe options (i still wear most of the shirts i wore when 9 months pregnant, my belly just didn't get very big), but which was not so very lucky for my back pain. i seriously think my back may never recover.
• cardigans, vests, jackets, blazers, these are your best friends. anything to frame your sides and lengthen the look of your torso and give the impression that you are one long column. it will make you feel lean, as if that's even possible. 

eight months, not in a bathroom this time.

• shoes! now is the time for shoes. a shoe with a whole lotta style is the best thing you can do for yourself. just make sure they're a sensible height, and that you're not falling over yourself all day. pregnant tendons and joints are so slippery, it never ceased to amaze me how often i'd fall off my ankles. seriously i rolled an ankle at least four times a day.
• this may not surprise anybody, but i like a pregnant belly in stripes. it's just cute, and kind of a magic eye trick.
• necklaces. necklaces will save you. super long necklaces, or really chunky bib necklaces, maybe both at the same time, whatever.
• maxi skirts are the best. when i was pregnant with huck there weren't maxi skirts yet because nobody'd invented them. you girls with the maxi skirt option these days are some lucky ducks. i've seen them pulled up to the rib cage and belted, which is cute, but i mostly like them low on the hips with a generously sized tee shirt tucked in to one side just a bit. the sloppy tuck. that's a dumb name.

nine months, central park

• don't forget, your hair right now is amazing. so is your skin, possibly. most likely your nails are rocking. focus on them. FOCUS ON THEMMMMM. 
• now is the time for supremely soft fabrics that graze just so. nothing is prettier than a pregnant woman in a lot of comfortably loose jersey layers.
• men's white tuxedo shirts are dang freaking cute over a big belly. i saw one on a cute pregnant lady the other day and i was like, file that away for later.
• do try really hard to love your pregnant face. here's mine: heavy on the cheeks, heavier on the chin.

• take lots of photos of yourself. no, i mean it. book a professional photographer and lay in a meadow clutching your belly if you want to, but i think it's important to document this body while you have it. it's amazing what's going on in there, and once it's over, you're (sort of) (in a weird way) going to miss it. (not that much, but i mean, it's weird, you do miss it.)
• here's a strange tip that surprisingly goes a long way: always have your toenails painted a pretty color. somehow that really made a difference for me.

two weeks before huck was born

now, let's cut to the chase. 

this is what being nine months pregnant feels like:

it feels awful. i felt like an ugly, dumpy, swollen mess. jewelry off after 7PM (swelling!), nothing fit right, and everyone around me was basically super skinny while i was just this really fat fatty.  no, i was pregnant! but no, really i just felt super fat. i don't think any amount of baby cravings can make those last few weeks of pregnancy any less miserable. MIS-ER-Y.

two days before huck was born

but while i doubt i'll ever be able to find anything particularly sexy about a pregnant belly, i have to admit that when i look back at these photos, i looked a lot better than i thought i did. it wasn't so bad. look at her! there's beauty in that big old belly! i hardly even notice the pregnant face, or the pregnant arms, or the pregnant cankles. i don't even really see the pregnant butt...  though believe me, i know it was there.

so no, maybe not sexy. 

but i'm pretty proud of that pregnant body anyway.

(and you should be, too.)