Category Archives: Pregnancy

She Wears Skirts – Maternity & Nursing Modesty

{click on the button to find all posts in this series from both Raising Arrows and The Modest Mom}

A burgeoning belly, a body that has swelled to epic proportions, aching hips, and a new life being knit within.  Modesty might be the last thing on your mind during this time, but as Caroline will tell you, modesty and feminine beauty can still be had during the maternity months.

It is so exciting to be expecting a little one! After you get past the first few months of morning sickness, your tummy starts getting bigger and you realize that new clothes need to be purchased. For some Mothers, this can be a challenge, and you can easily feel overwhelmed. If you are used to dressing in skirts and dresses, you might wonder where you will find modest maternity clothing. In my last two pregnancies I have discovered that it is possible to dress modestly, and yet be cute and stylish while pregnant. I actually love my maternity wardrobe now!

I hear a lot of ladies say that they just try to get by while pregnant, and they don’t take the time or money to get very many maternity clothes for themselves. If you plan on being pregnant more than once, you are going to get pretty tired of wearing three outfits over and over again! 9 months really is a long time, and it can be worth it to invest in some clothes that will make you feel beautiful.

Here is a list of what I have in my maternity wardrobe:

Blouses and Knit Tops-I honestly don’t know how many I have!

6 Maternity Skirts

1-2 Dresses

1-2 Jumpers

Maternity Coat

Compression Hose for my Varicose Veins

Larger size of regular low cut underwear

Maternity Pajamas

So where do I find my maternity clothes, and what do they look like?

{remember, all pictures are clickable!}

Maternity Blouses

I love going to garage sales and children’s consignment sales for my tops! Many times you can find like new maternity tops at garage sales for .50 or $1.00 each! I don’t think I have ever bought a brand new maternity top, the most I have ever paid is $5.00 at a consignment sale for one. Craigslist and Ebay are also a great place to shop for maternity clothes. You can also ask friends if you can borrow their maternity clothes. I know I have shared some of my clothes with a friend before! One other place I look for maternity tops is Zulily, a daily deals place for Moms, Babies, and Children. Those are brand new, but are cheaper than full price.

{Amy here – Don’t forget about looking at shirts that may only need an undershirt or a Belly Band pulled up instead of used in the traditional way.  I did this with a lot of maternity shirts during my last pregnancy and it worked great!}

Maternity Skirts

My favorite skirts to wear while pregnant are the Long Ruffle Skirts we sell on The Modest Mom. They are loose enough to be modest, but they don’t make me feel even bigger than I really am when wearing them! I have a black one, denim one, khaki one, brown one, and several prints.

themodestmom.com

The straight A-Line maternity skirt is perfect for everyday wear. I have one or two of these skirts.

A-line maternity skirt from themodestmom.com

Our Ruched Skirt is a popular choice for a more dressy type skirt. This is great for wearing to church, or going to your baby shower! :)

What skirts do not look good?

Huge prints and stripes does not look flattering on most pregnant women. I would stay away from skirts like that!

Now on to…

Dresses

I love to have one or two nice dresses for church. While most dresses at Shabby Apple are short, this maternity dress is lovely. It could be paired with a nice sweater if you are pregnant during the winter months.

Jumpers

I like having a solid denim jumper to wear while pregnant. Sometimes I want something long and flowing. A nice jumper does the trick.

maternity jumper from motherhood.com - I would wear a shirt under this!

Maternity Coat

This is a luxury in my opinion, as I have gotten along fine most of my pregnancies with my regular long wool coat. I admit, towards the end the only button that actually closes is the top one, but it still works! My Mother-In-Law happened to find a maternity coat for me to wear during my last pregnancy, and it was nice to have something made just for that time of life. :) This is the last thing I would spend my money on if I was on a budget though.

maternity coat from motherhood.com

Compression Hose

I had really bad Varicose Vein problems this last pregnancy, so I wore compression hoses when I could stand them. :) The best place to buy them is Ames Walker.  You are supposed to buy new compression hose for each pregnancy, as they do wear out.

Underwear

I bought maternity underwear during my first pregnancy from Motherhood. I have never bought any since then! It was terribly uncomfortable, and never fit right. Now, I just buy a size or two larger of low cut underwear, and wear it under my belly. It works perfect, and is less expensive!

Pajamas

Two pairs of maternity pajamas are very nice to have. I have also just worn loose nightgowns, but I don’t like to sleep in nightgowns nearly as much as pajama pants. Cotton pajamas are the best as they are breathable, making hot flashes at night a little bit more bearable. :)

pajamas from motherhood.com

Staying warm

If you are pregnant during the winter months, you might be wondering how to keep warm! I wear knee high cotton socks when pregnant, or these leggings from Motherhood would be wonderful to wear under a skirt.

Now Amy speaks to nursing modesty…

Breastfeeding a new babe can be one of the most blessed experiences of motherhood.  But it can also be rather confounding when it comes to nursing discreetly in public.  However, with a little practice and the right clothing, you can modestly breastfeed with confidence and leave the days of nursing the baby in the bathroom behind!  Here’s how…

*Get the right nursing top

I have my preferences in nursing wear.  So, what you will see here is based on those preferences.  I’ve breastfed 7 children for a total of 6½ years…I’ve got it down to a science. ;)

For new moms and/or moms who are less than confidant about their ability to breastfeed in public, it is advisable to get a couple of nice tops designed with the nursing mother in mind.  My favorites are the ones that have a double layer.  You simply lift the top layer and there are nursing openings cut into the bottom layer.  Your tummy stays covered and the top layer drapes nicely around baby’s face.  Motherwear.com is a great place to find these kinds of tops:

Cotton knit top from motherwear.com

Layered knit top from motherwear.com

I would advise staying away from anything that says it has spandex in it or says it is form-fitting.

Another great way to stay modest while nursing is to wear your regular clothes with something underneath, so…

*Get the right underthings

There are several ways to do this.  One way, is to get a tank top specifically designed as a nursing tank, like this one from Undercover Mama:

You can also buy a regular camisole that has a shelf bra built in.  Wear it under your regular tops and simply pull down the top of the camisole to nurse.  However, this isn’t the best option because these camisoles don’t have much support.

Another thing I have done is used a Belly Bandto cover my belly under regular shirts so when I lift my shirt to nurse, my belly stays covered. {The link here is just one of MANY brands of Belly Bands.  I’ve also been known to buy spandex camisoles cheap and cut off the top half, thus creating a wide strip of stretchy material that acts just like a belly band!}

*Get the right accessories

Every nursing mama has a favorite nursing accessory.  Michelle Duggar loves her My Brest Friend, my friend Dalena loves her nursing cover, and I’m partial to just a simple blanket.

A dear friend of mine introduced me to the joys of an oversized receiving blanket as a way to modestly nurse.  These are easy sewing projects and can be done in lots of different fabrics.  My favorites are a lightweight cotton for summer and a flannel for winter.  Mine measure about 1¼ yd square.  Roll hem the edges and you have a personalized nursing blanket that can be anything from a sweet baby print to a chic black for those dates with Daddy. :)

*Get the right attitude

I’m not talking about an in-your-face attitude, but an attitude that shows confidence in what you are doing.  Women who are nervous about breastfeeding in public will often end up making more of a scene than need be.  By simply practicing at home in front a mirror to see how much skin is actually showing and then learning how to quickly and discreetly unlatch what needs to be unlatched and latch on who needs to be latched on, a breastfeeding mother can easily nurse anywhere.

I’ve got a whole rhythm down to nursing my babies.  I hand baby to someone else or lay him down on my lap, throw my blanket over one shoulder and take care of the unlatching and situating that needs to be done, slide baby up under the blanket and shirt, latch him on (unless he is old enough to do it himself ;) ), cross one leg over to hold baby in place, and go on about my life.  But again, I’ve nursed 7 children…practice DOES make perfect!

So, there you have it…

Pregnancy and breastfeeding can be done beautifully and modestly!

Now, head over to The Modest Mom where you can find Caroline’s husband guest posting!
If you’d like to read all the posts in the She Wears Skirts series, simply click on the button below:

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Affording Kids – Keeping Them Healthy

I’ll be honest with you, sick children scare me.  And when there are fevers in the house, I can do nothing but beg God’s mercy.

That is why this post will not be a light-hearted one.  It hits me too close to home.

What I have to say here will not be some comprehensive list on how to keep children healthy or how to afford healthcare.  It will not be a commentary on the healthcare plan or a laundry list of helpful herbs.  I could do all this, and probably will at some point, but not in this post.

This post is a story.  A story of our family’s choice.  A choice that works for us.  Keeping YOUR children healthy is YOUR business.  There is no ONE right choice.  With that said, I want to share with you how we chose to think outside the box and the blessings that followed.

After years of using traditional insurance and even having insurance through my husband’s job (that we paid a pretty penny for), we felt convicted to leave the world of high premiums and numbers without names.  We were introduced to a company called Christian Healthcare Ministries by some friends of ours.  We liked what we saw and decided to drop our “safe” insurance and go with CHM, a Christian cost-share type program where members “shared” each other’s healthcare costs.

In many ways, it was a leap of faith.

In fact, I was pregnant with Emily at the time.  CHM would not be able to cover the cost of her birth.  I had no idea how we would pay the thousands of dollars it would be to deliver her, but my husband believed this was what we should do.

Leap.

And the Lord provided for her birth.

Then Emily got sick.  As the bills rolled in, I wondered how we would ever pay for all of this.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Doing our part to help reduce the bills, we sent bill after adjusted bill into Christian Healthcare Ministries.  CHM even sent someone in to help us get these bills reduced.  Sometimes we felt as if we were knocking heads with the hospital.  Sometimes we wondered if the money would be there to pay for it all.  After all, we had only been members for a little over a year.  We knew how the program was supposed to work.  But would it?

And then Emily died.

And Christian Healthcare Ministries took over completely.

The hospital bill was reduced and finalized and taken out of our hands.  The money began to come in from CHM and we paid off everything.

Everything.

Since then we have had 2 babies and several hospital stays.  We have nothing but good to say about Christian Healthcare Ministries.  As it turns out, Fox news agrees with us.

If you have ever wondered about cost-share programs or simply wanted a way out of the health insurance cycle, please visit Christian Healthcare Ministries.  Tell them I sent you.  My referral number is 112373.

It is a fact of life that children do get sick.  Christian Healthcare Ministries gives this mama one less thing to worry about.

Affording Kids Series:
Introduction
Feeding Them
Schooling Them
Entertaining Them
Keeping Them Healthy – this post

I’m Pregnant, She’s Not – When Friendship Meets Infertility

She looked down at her shoes and muttered,

congratulations

My excitement over a new little one being knit within melted into dismay and frustration.  I wanted her to be happy for me.  Instead she seemed angry.

It was years before my heart would recognize the pain behind her quietly stoic congratulations.

And yet, I had been there.  Once upon a time, I had been the one reeling as those around me announced new pregnancies while I was left empty and longing…eventually, bitter and angry.  I was the one who had muttered congratulations to my shoes.  But in my own pregnant excitement, I no longer felt the sting of that pain.  The pain that comes when your friendship meets infertility.

I knew what it was like for me to be the one not pregnant, but I did not know what it was like to be my friend when I was pregnant and she was not.

So, I asked her.

This rock solid Christian woman spoke of her happiness for me, but her jealousy as well.  As time passed, she wondered if God was punishing her for doing something wrong, withholding blessings from her because of something she or her husband had done.

She knew she was being spiritually attacked.  She studied her Bible, diligently looking for peace and answers until finally, she handed the pain and frustration over to the Lord.

She told me that when my baby was born, the jealousy resurfaced, but she immersed herself in holding my little one, avoiding the pity parties her heart wanted to have.

It wasn’t easy.

But she grew spiritually…as did I when I was facing the same emotions.

So, what do you do if you are the pregnant one?

Be gracious.  Be humble.  Acknowledge her pain.  Don’t be so caught up in your own joy, you forget she is grieving.

Let her have the space and time she needs.  Love her through her pain.

Every time you have a baby and she does not is yet one more time she must deal with spiritual attacks.  Attacks that say she isn’t a good mother.  Attacks that say she doesn’t deserve to be blessed.  Attacks that can lead to bitterness…gut-wrenching, depths of the pit bitterness.  Bathe her in prayer.  She will need it.

Those of you with first hand experience in dealing with this in a friendship, please leave your comments here so others can benefit from your wisdom.

A Breastfeeding Journey – Part 2


(Part 1 of this journey can be found HERE.)

On with the story…

Chapter 5

I was now pregnant with my 5th child; this being the second time I had become pregnant while practicing ecological breastfeeding (breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, etc).  I nursed through the pregnancy until my 5th month when my father died.  With preparations and time spent at his bedside, I found myself spending long stretches of time away from my 4th child.  When we were reunited, he no longer wanted to nurse.  Emotionally run down and physically exhausted, I allowed him to wean. He was 13 months old.  4 months later, his little sister Emily was born.

Chapter 6

My nursing relationship with Emily was publicly chronicled in my award-winning post entitled Breastfeeding:  The Memory of Emily.  You will have to excuse me if I do not recount that story here.  This chapter is painfully short, as was my precious daughter’s life.

Chapter 7

As with my other babies, I had already been cycling regularly while nursing Emily.  6 weeks after her death, I found out I was pregnant with who would become our New Year’s baby, little Micah.  However, his birth did not go as I had expected, and a tramatic emergency c-section put wrenches in our breastfeeding relationship from the get-go.  I was too weak and tired to nurse him in a way that would boost my milk production for my “little” 10# 6 ounce baby boy.  He required supplementation, which led to nipple confusion, which led to frustration.  A month later, after I was finally healed from the surgery,  I took him to bed with me for the day and walked away from the bottles forever.

Chapter 8

For the first time EVER, my cycles did not return until my newest baby was 9 months old!  I was overjoyed!  What was different?  The only thing I can even remotely attribute this to was the fact that our diet now consisted of entirely organic meat.  It’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it.

The day Micah turned 1, I got a positive pregnancy test.  He was weaned shortly thereafter…for personal reasons.

Chapter 9

In case you are counting, that is now 5 babies in just at 6 years, with Garin being born 19 days after my 3rd child’s 6th birthday.  Of my 7 children, ONLY the ones born less than 2 years apart were conceived while I was breastfeeding. Sometimes you do everything “right” and God still bless! ;)

Garin is nearly 4 months old, is exclusively breastfed, and nurses whenever he pleases.  By his own choice, he does not take a pacifier and has yet to figure out that his thumb can be peeled away from the rest of his fist so as to make only his thumb sopping wet, rather than his entire body.

He was not an easy baby to nurse in the beginning.  Let’s just say the word PIRANHA is what comes to mind when I think of those early weeks.  In addition to that, he was colicky until about a month ago.  Add to that postpartum depression for the first time ever and you get a little bit of a nightmare, but we stayed the course.  He nurses fantastically now, he’s a happy little guy most days, and my hormones are beginning to level.

The rest of this chapter has yet to be written.  I don’t have a breastfeeding philosophy because I’ve never managed to have two children exactly alike. All I know is breastfeeding has been a wonderful experience, but not always an easy one.  I cherish these years, and I am sure when I am an old woman, I will dearly miss having a nursling in my arms.

A Breastfeeding Journey – Part 1

Several of you have asked about our breastfeeding and weaning practices.  While I know how volatile this subject can be, I’ve decided to go ahead and give you our story in the hopes you might see yourself among my words and possibly learn something new about yourself and/or others.

Chapter 1

Baby #1 is born.  I am 21 and know no one who has breastfed with any success.  While I have heard of La Leche League, what I have heard has been coated in a tone of disdain.  However, I am determined to breastfeed my son for at least 2 weeks.

He is born via C-section and weighs in at 8# 15 oz.  I am told he needs formula.  So, we supplement.  He does well nursing and supplementing, but I am in pain.  Cracked and bleeding, I turn to breast shells to get me through.  {Oh, and did I tell you my husband kept saying I had promised to give it 2 weeks and I couldn’t go back on my promise?  He’s pretty much the only reason I kept going.}

However, I was in college and I figured the only way to get my son to sleep through the night so I could function during the day was to give him formula.  Plus, I was going to be driving a combine {yes, the kind you cut wheat with} for my dad in a few months and thought I would need to have him completely weaned by then anyway.

At 2½ months, my first child was fully weaned.

Chapter 2

It is nearly 3 years later, and I have made friends with a few people who have breastfed successfully past 2 weeks.  In fact, one mother lasted 9 months and also attends La Leche League.  She assures me they are not lunatics.  I am encouraged to try again, this time setting my goal at 1 year.

But baby is jaundice.  And she nurses poorly.  We use a SNS (Supplemental Nursing System…something I am told is no longer used) and after weeks of hard work, she nurses like a champ.  I treasure my nights nursing her in a chair in her room with soft music in the background.  When she is old enough for a cup, I supplement with formula here and there.

At 1 year, she is weaned.

Here is where I reveal something not so pleasant.  I weaned my daughter because I wanted another baby.  You see, rather than fully enjoying the blessings I had been given, I was getting ahead of myself.  I figured breastfeeding my daughter was holding me back from another pregnancy, and when I became sick with the flu right around the time she turned 1 year old, I found my excuse to quit nursing.

Was she traumatized?  No…but I learned a valuable lesson during the next 3 years.

Chapter 3

Weaning my daughter did not afford me the blessing of another baby.  It was nearly 4 years and many hard lessons later, when I finally gave birth to my 3rd child.  During those years, I grieved weaning my 2nd born.

But this new little one nursed beautifully from the beginning.  This time I set no end date.

I had learned more.  I wanted more.  I nursed “on-demand,” I co-slept, when she got bigger, I side-carred the crib to our bed.  She was my first baby to be worn.  We lived together in a perfect rhythm.  She rarely cried.  And I felt like maybe this time I was doing it “right.”

But when she was 3 months old, my cycles came back.

Because I had always supplemented, I was sure that when I practiced ecological breastfeeding, my cycles would stay away.  I had heard of a year or better of amenorrhea, so I was shocked and saddened when this did not prove to be the case for me.

And then I became pregnant.

My little one was just 7 months old.

And then came the accusations. I must have done something “wrong.”  Surely I didn’t really co-sleep or nurse on demand.  I was probably slipping a bottle in there every now and then or putting her on a schedule.  The truth was she was exclusively breastfed (meaning she’d was not eating solids yet), she did not take a pacifier or suck her thumb (which would naturally space her feedings) and she nursed whenever and wherever she pleased.  We were a walking “exception to the rule.”

Determined to do my best with the circumstances I had been handed, I nursed through the pregnancy and tandem nursed for months after the new baby’s birth.

And then it happened again.

Despite the fact that I was tandem nursing two children born 16 months apart, I started cycling almost immediately.

Chapter 4

I weaned my 3rd child at 22 months because I could no longer handle the demands of a nursing infant and a nursing toddler.  I continued to co-sleep and nurse my newest little one on demand, but I no longer believed in amenorrhea…at least not for me.  I did my best to field the comments and accusations as to what I might be doing “wrong,” all the while knowing in my heart, I had done everything I knew to do.

And when baby #4 was 8 months old, I became pregnant again.

To be continued…

The Perfect Diastasis Recti Brace!

NOTE:  I no longer feel I can wholeheartedly endorse this product as it did begin to ride a bit in the back after several months of use.  I am therefore, not going to include it in the Diastasis Recti From a Mom’s Perspective Page.

I feel like shouting from the roof of my house!  FINALLY!  Finally, I’ve found a brace that covers my diastasis completely, stays put, isn’t too bulky, and is comfortable!  YIPPEE!

OK, a little background for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about…

About a year ago, I did something I swore I would never do…I posted pregnant belly pics.  For most people that’s no big deal.  For me, it was huge…literally.  I have what is called a diastasis recti, which means in layman’s terms a split in my stomach muscles.  My split is complete from top to bottom.  I always look pregnant to some extent.  It is a condition that is very difficult for me to deal with emotionally and physically. Someday I hope to have the surgery to correct it, but that someday is not now.

So, I told you in my Pregnant and Huge post that I wore something SIMILAR to the brace pictured there.  However, I didn’t realize how very UN-similar what I owned was to that brace until I actually purchased the brace in that post.  You see, the brace I did own was worn out.  I needed something new, so I ordered a new brace from PainReliever.com.  I was so excited to try this new brace because it looked so much sturdier than the one I did own.  The difference was drastic and utterly AMAZING!

See for yourself…

Notice the bulge?

The bulge is gone!

My diastasis recti brace is actually listed as a “back support brace”; however, it also lists abdominal compression as one of its attributes.  And boy, let me tell you, it works!  The brace is 9″ wide, so even the largest diastasis is covered by the brace.  The velcro on the brace is ultra strong and the extra straps help compress my muscles even more.

And it is comfortable!  Now that is saying a lot!  Most of the braces I’ve worn outside of pregnancy I want to take off the second I put them on.  This one I wear day after day and never feel that way.  I will admit my back does get a bit sweaty, but it doesn’t soak through to my shirt, so I can live with that.

I know the price may seem a bit steep, but if you have a diastasis recti, you know what life is like always fielding the “when are you due” questions, not having your clothes fit right, and always feeling uncomfortable.  The way I feel wearing this brace is well worth the $47.91.

**Through a wonderful series of events I was able to receive my diastasis recti brace for free; however, I would not hesitate to spend the money to get another one (and probably will once I lose enough weight to justify a smaller size).**

I just cannot say enough good about this brace and what it has done for me!  I feel like things are more “together”.  I can bend and lift and not worry about doing even more damage to my muscles. My clothes fit better, and I just feel better.  Thank you so much, PainReliever.com!  I could just hug you!

Come see what I’ve been up to since I wrote this post!  You’ll be amazed!