Building a maternity wardrobe is a bit different than building a regular wardrobe. First, there is a lot more expediency – you have to build one quickly in order to accommodate your growing belly – and it is much, much shorter-lived. I built mine to my priorities – I work in a business-professional setting in which most women wear dresses and skirts. Because I am client-facing, I often wear suits, or at least a jacket over my dress. While there is a limited selection of maternity wear appropriate for the workplace, it actually makes the process of building a wardrobe much easier – having fewer options sometimes helps!
My first pregnancy
Like many first-time pregnant ladies, I started from scratch. I went to the typical maternity stores – Pea in the Pod and Motherhood Maternity – and found most of the inventory to be a bit lacking for my needs. The items I did like, I found to be pricey. I was willing to invest some money because quality is important to me, I need to look pulled together for work, and because I expected to wear the clothing through at least another pregnancy. However, I didn’t want to make unreasonable purchases. In a simple search for famous pregnant moms, I landed on Kate Middleton, who consistently looked classic and sophisticated throughout her pregnancies. She had a lot of high-end, expensive clothing, but she also wore what the Brits called “high street fashion”, which is clothing that isn’t cheap, but is accessible. A few of her dresses were from the same brand – Seraphine – which quickly became my go-to for my entire professional maternity wardrobe. I ultimately made four large orders, purchasing 16 dresses for almost $1,200.
My new work wardrobe felt a bit like a capsule wardrobe. I could fit almost everything into a single drawer and I never felt at loss for what to wear every morning – I liked nearly every piece of clothing I purchased.
I had less of a need for casual clothing and tried to make do with oversized shirts and two pairs of jeans – blue and black – and a pair of leggings. However, I ultimately made a few more purchases for my babymoon (in which we took a Disney cruise!) including two tank tops, two casual light sweaters, a pair of shorts, and a bathing suit, totaling another $250. Definitely not an insignificant amount of money, but an investment I was willing to make because I knew I would be able to wear it for another pregnancy.
I would note that the one or two duds I bought were all casual wear. Because I assumed I could get by with cheap casual clothing, I made a few purchases on Amazon, but found that the fit was poor and the material was uncomfortable. Building my maternity wardrobe reminded me that quality clothing is worth it – I may pay a bit extra, but I will enjoy wearing it. The clothing I bought on Amazon was barely worn and eventually donated – ultimately money poorly spent.
My second pregnancy
To be honest, it took a good amount of willpower to not go on another shopping spree with my second pregnancy. I wanted to justify it with the fact that I had more client meetings and I was pregnant in different seasons – my first pregnancy was mostly fall and winter, my second pregnancy was mostly spring and summer – so I obviously needed more clothing. I ultimately did do some shopping but practiced some control by choosing to purchase only used clothing. Used maternity clothing is actually great – it’s not worn for long and thus, generally in good shape. Because I liked my Seraphine dresses so much from my first pregnancy, I specifically searched for the brand’s dresses on Poshmark, which I found to have a better selection than Ebay. Despite the high shipping costs, I ended up purchasing 6 dresses for $210, which I found to be really reasonable. It is a bit of a crapshoot – one dress had a bit of cat hair on it – but on the whole, the dresses were all clean and showed little wear and tear. I made one new purchase – a pair of white jeans from Loft’s maternity line – which brought my grand total to $260. Not bad. When I added my “new” clothing to my preexisting wardrobe, I felt like I had hit a saturation point. I knew I could go through my second pregnancy comfortably and with style, both in my professional and personal life. Win!
Photo: Laura Lee
In May 2017, we took a 6-day trip to Spain with our 14-month old, Emily. It was a fairly spontaneous trip that I booked on a whim after getting an email advertising an inexpensive flight deal to Madrid on a discount airline, Air Europa. After a fairly tough year, I thought we deserved a nice trip. Our round trip tickets cost $850, a great deal for an international flight over Memorial Day weekend.
I booked my first Disney cruise, on the Disney Dream, in late 2015. It was a 4-night cruise leaving from Port Canaveral, Florida, that travelled to the Bahamas. It was our babymoon – we were expecting our first little one (Emily!) in March – and it was the last trip we planned to take as a family of two. It was amazing in so many ways and the cruise met, perhaps exceeded, all of my expectations. Full disclosure – I am a Disney fan, but not a fanatic, I swear! And Ken really is fairly ambivalent about Disney. However, we both enjoyed the cruise thoroughly, even as adults travelling without any children. Below is how we saved money on the trip and the things we enjoyed as a party of two adults on what is a very family-friendly cruise line.