This blog post in The Juggle made me recall fondly my days of wearing maternity clothes. Ok, not so much. I’ve been through two pregnancies while working and lived through just about every season while having to wear those dreaded maternity work clothes.

In regular work attire, I’m jealous of the (non-maternity) clothes my stay-at-home mom friends get to wear during the week: shorts, workout clothes, sweats, tank tops. Oh, and flip flops. How I love me some flip flops. But nothing is worse than having to put together a maternity work ensemble. Really, nothing.

So here’s how I did it, without breaking the bank. During the first pregnancy, which was mostly in relatively cool weather, I bought three nice pairs of pants–black, grey, khaki–at the same price I would normally pay. They lasted through both pregnancies, even though I wore them, well, far too often.

Paying more than what seemed justifiable for maternity clothes was worth it.  I bought one nice jacket in black, so I could match it with the black and grey pants. The rest I purchased at Target and Old Navy, borrowed from friends or got on consignment (Baltimore folks: check out Tried but True on York Road).

I probably picked up about eight to 10 shirts altogether, plus a couple of skirts. It was enough. Perhaps I wasn’t a fashionista, but it looked pretty put together, particularly when you added in my normal accessories and some nice shoes.

During the second pregnancy, I had been hoping for a complete seasonal overlap. It didn’t happen. It was about four months behind the first one, calendar-wise, so I was faced with my last trimester of pregnancy in the middle of a beloved Baltimore summer. I won’t go into the details of what that was like. But in short: avoid it at all costs.

My long pants and long-sleeved shirts didn’t really work on those 95-degree days. So, I added to the maternity wardrobe a couple more skirts and a black dress from eBay, if I recall correctly. I’m pretty sure I wore that black dress down to its last threads. Overall, my goal was to keep costs at a minimum while still looking presentable for work, which I was able to do.

Lessons: Invest in a few nice pieces; borrow as much as you can (ask around in your neighborhood and at work–people definitely have this stuff lying around); and search the discounters and eBay.  Sure, there were times when I wasn’t happy wearing that black dress for the third time in two weeks. But no one noticed. Or at least no one said anything. And I assure you, those two little boys who were the product of the pregnancies, they didn’t care one bit.

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