Swimsuit Shopping - the PG version

Yesterday, I bought a maternity swimsuit.

Having been a "bigger" girl for a while now, I was fully expecting my self esteem to be ready to chuck into the trash can on the way out of Target after trying on swimsuits. I was thinking to myself, you thought buying jeans was hard? HA! This is a bathing suit, baby. This is the BIG LEAGUES. This will take any self confidence you may have, beat it down like the little bitch it is, and leave it crying like a whimpering child on the floor.

Can we just say that I wasn't really looking forward to it?

Unfortunately, since we were going to a cookout to celebrate Independence Day and it's currently a million degrees outside where I live, and I'm already freaking hot all the time as it is, the pool was a mighty strong lure for me. I haven't put on a swimsuit in two years AT LEAST. The swimsuit that I do own I have owned since before I met my husband. That would make it about eight years old. I have two super cute bikinis, bought forty pounds ago, not too long before my wedding. One, I actually wore. One, I was saving for when I lost ten more pounds.

*snort* Like that ever happened. That bad boy still has the freaking TAGS on it.

I tried it on yesterday, rationale being that A) I don't have to worry about my gut hanging out at this point, may as well and B) why spend all that money on a new suit that I'll only wear a couple of times? Well, the good news is, that the bottoms still fit. Can you believe that? This means, I don't have as fat of an ass as I previously believed.

YES!!!

Unfortunately, I wasn't going to pull off my "look-at-me-I'm-a-ballsy-pregnant-woman-and-PROUD-of-my-belly" suit stunt because the boobs, they did grow. A LOT. Way more than I thought they had. My husband and I had a good giggle over them and the sad little triangle top's attempt to rein them in, and then headed off to Target.

I love Target.

I tried on five different suits: one from the regular swimsuit department, one from the "Women's" plus size department, and three from the maternity selection. Well, two were of the same style, just different sizes. I ended up going with one of those, due to the comfort factor. This is where I learned something very interesting.

When you are not pregnant, you try on suits looking for the one that highlights your assets, and makes you feel as super cute and confident and NOT lumpy/jiggly as possible. When you are pregnant, you KNOW you look fat as it is, so you just go with one that is cute in and of itself, and is comfortable.

I tried on the first suit (the one I ended up buying) and I was like "hmm, I look fat" but instead of being tempted to wallow in my own tears, I shrugged, noted that it didn't pinch my boobs, but they weren't in any danger of falling out either, and decided I liked how the colors (appropriately named "Fireworks") looked against my skin. Then I moved on to the next suit.

WHOA.

I wore my new swimsuit (which was only a size large! I thought for sure I'd have to rock an XL too) while surrounded by skinny girls in tiny bikinis all day, and I was okay. I was better than okay, I was happy and pretty damn secure with myself and my big old belly.

Being pregnant ROCKS.