By my current guesstimate, I will be 3 or so months pregnant in January. According to the general advice out there, you're not supposed to announce your pregnancy until you are at least three month's along. That way most of the risk of miscarriage is behind you and you've proven your ability to hold down a job through the early difficult part.
Now, I'm pretty tight with my bosses -- one of them is a "repeat" boss that I worked with at a different job years ago -- so I told them much earlier than the recommended three months. Originally I was going to keep it secret until the three months had passed but my office-mate and two of my friends (who happen to be co-workers) already knew. I didn't want my bosses to feel as if they were the last to know and I also wanted them to be aware that I might need some extra time here and there for tests and doctor's appointments. They were both ecstatic at the news and barring the occassional request that I sit instead of stand at a meeting or exhortation for me to leave work at 6 instead of 7, they've treated me exactly the same as before. Scratch that. They haven't changed a bit.
In the meantime, aside from a close handful of co-workers, the bulk of my department doesn't know. I've been trying to do my best to hide it from them, but it's getting harder every day because my clothes simply do not fit.
I wear suits to work. Rather I should say "wore." Let's just say that my mode of dress has become interesting (read: sloppy) as of late. I can only wear two of my jackets since the others won't button around my middle anymore. (I know that I could wear my jackets unbuttoned but I button them to hide my emerging belly.) And let's not mention the bottoms. I currently have one pair of maternity pants and two pairs of old "fat pants" that I've been using to tide me over until I can officially bust out some full-fledged maternity suits at work... Which will happen when I announce to the rest of my department that I'm knocked up.
So in preparation of my impending announcement, I've been looking for clothes. Suits, quite specifically. Now I can find designer maternity, cute sexy trendy maternity and funky cool maternity. None of them appropriate for my work environment and all of them saddled with the appropriate designer cute sexy trendy funky cool pricetags.
I admit that I'm picky about my clothes. I've been on this planet long enough to develop my own personal sense of style and develop prejudices and favorites. I don't like clingy knits or deep necklines, so most of the wraparound dress styles that are in favor are out. I don't want to highlight my belly, so cutaway, belly revealing styles are out. I favor structured well-made clothes so floppy, poorly cut outfits are out. Let's just say that so far I have only found one or two (pricey) suit separates that I consider classic and that I would wear. I can, however, find something like 20 different styles of pregnancy jeans.
As for the suits that I like, I don't want to spend $500 on just two jackets and matching pants. (I'm factoring in sales tax and shipping here.) Call me cheap, but I can't justify spending that much money on two outfits. I mean, what am I going to wear the rest of the week? Now $750 on two jackets, two matching pants, one matching skirt, a different but coordinating skirt or pair of pants, and a dress... well I could do that.
At the same time, I don't want to be so picky that I wind up in a mumu for the next seven months, know what I mean?
So, after my big appointment on Tuesday, I will start hunting in earnest. I want to stop feeling like a slob at work and get my professional groove back.
Wish me luck.
