Before I got pregnant, when it came to denim, I wanted it so tight and rigid that Victorian corsets would ostensibly be more comfortable. I have, on more than one occasion, been caught sweating and lying down on my bed just to loop a coat hanger through a zipper to zip myself into one particularly amazing pair of vintage Calvin Klein jeans that (brag) do make me look like Brooke Shields (at least from the waist down).
Now, of course, when the radius of your body completely changes, you must make adjustments. And since I was pregnant in winter, I did need some sort of pant. But every pair of overpriced pregnancy jeans I ordered online just made me feel like I was losing my identity and becoming a pile of mush.
The situation was getting dire by month five. When you can’t drink, what other vice is left besides retail therapy? So I drove myself to the Woodbury Common mall, ostensibly for Pinkberry, and ended up at the Gap Factory outlet.
And there they were. The jeans! Buttery soft, drawstringed, and leopard. Three descriptors that pre-pregnancy, I never would have considered essential. But in the chaos of the Gap Factory outlet changing room, I became a convert. I didn’t feel like myself, but I at least felt like a very pregnant Carmela Soprano, which is to say that I felt extremely powerful. I bought them in two shades of leopard and got another Pinkberry to celebrate.
