by Erika Armyn

Created on: February 09, 2009

All I wanted was a dress.

Actually, scratch that. What I really wanted was to feel like a woman again. Oh, the perfect irony of it! Here I was, 8 months pregnant, harboring a growing, squirming life within me, and "feminine" was the last adjective that sprung to mind upon contemplating my bloated image in the dressing room mirror. "Bovine", as I struggled into a 38DD nursing bra, was the first.

On my way to Safeway to pick up the Dr Pepper and carton of strawberries I'd been hankering for all afternoon, I'd waddled into the outlet store with the idea of finding a flirty summer dress that would fit over my baby bump. For the past few months, I'd been trying to maximize the life of my pre-baby blue jeans, wearing them ever lower on my meaty hips, which had begun to strain against the fabric. I was not ready to say goodbye to my skinny jeans. In doing so, I would be bidding my youth a tearful adieu.

However, after weeks of scratching the deep red divots the waistband had begun digging into my skin, I had forced myself to accept that Lycra tummy panels and drawstrings were my destiny, and had invested in some sloppy maternity clamdiggers and stretchy polos. In the privacy of our hot apartment, I languished in cotton underpants and my fiance's XL T-shirts. It was time to invest in a dress, however briefly it would actually fit. He would be thrilled to come home from work to find a girl waiting for him. An ungainly, sweaty girl, yes, but a girl nonetheless.

I shuffled in my flip-flops - at that time, the only shoes that fit - up the row of dresses. Waddling forlornly past the butt-skimming minis and the flouncy little nipped-in numbers, I realized that I would need to make my selections from the "Tablecloths and Tents" section of the dress rack if I was to find something that would accommodate my ungainly new physique. Not only was I eating and sleeping for two, but dressing for two as well! I had managed to find a few dresses, most of them beach coverups with what seemed to be enough "give" to the fabric.

What had seemed to be enough outside the dressing room was no match for this much woman. Even the "tent" dresses fit like a gingham sausage casing, untamed flesh spilling over seams. Necklines that would have been decent prior to my pregnancy now looked slatternly; my cups runneth over! Everything else looked like I had just wrapped a towel around myself. Spaghetti straps were superfluous, lost somewhere between the curve of my neck and my fleshy shoulder. My ankles and feet had never looked so swollen - did I really want to show them off? Maybe my fiance would prefer to find me in my Jockeys and his oversized workshirts.

On the flipside, my hair had taken on a glossy fullness, compliments of my "seefood" diet (I see it, I eat it) and a strict habit of taking my prenatal vitamin with water before bed. Even beneath the harsh track lighting in the store, the apples of my cheeks glowed back at me from the mirror, and my face appeared positively radiant. And my baby bump, as tricky as it made getting dressed and as impossible as it made to wear tailored clothing, was the most beautiful change. I caressed it lovingly with a swollen hand.

Beautiful or not, the wind was taken from my sails, and I wandered over to the bra racks.

And discovered, yet again, that nothing reaffirms one's womanhood like having to purchase a larger bra.

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