First things first, let's take care of the belly pictures since they're always awkward! :) This was actually taken on the 13th so it's a week old. I guess that would make me 22 weeks and 4 days. You'll have to excuse the bed head and pj's. I had Nick take this when he got home from work so it's after midnight and Wedge and I were napping before hand! 23 weeks and 5 days.
Now for my belly band/maternity band/bella band... whatever you want to call it! A friend gave me a link on how to make one so I decided to try it. They are incredibly easy and took me less than an hour to make and that includes playing with a puppy and responding to comments on facebook in between. The hardest part was the hand stitching at the end, but even that wasn't too bad.
Here's my final masterpiece in all its glory! It works well with my pajama bottoms right? Lucky for me the shirt I was wearing matched my pj's so I didn't have to change clothes for the pictures! I like how it looks like I'm wearing two shirts. And I like that it comes up high on my stomach. It'll be nice to wear after the baby comes so I'll feel less exposed while nursing since it will keep my back covered. Bonus! It's too big for me for now. Since it's just a tube that's all the same size it's really loose around my ribs and therefore bunches up under my shirt and doesn't look normal. I'm sure eventually I'll grow into it, but I think the next one I make I'll cut a few inches smaller. The tutorial that I followed showed pictures and because I wasn't sure how far along the girl was or what her pre-pregnancy body type is, I didn't want to make any changes to it and have it not fit. But now I know for next time and I'm excited to make another one. The best part is these things run like $15-$20 in stores and I made mine for under $5. Had I of been willing to wait for knit fabric to be on sale it would have been even cheaper, but I paid full price for it. Oh, and really it would cost me even less at full price, but I bought exactly the amount of fabric the tutorial said and I ended up with quite a bit extra so lesson learned for next time.
If you would like to make your own, which I highly recommend, here's the link to her blog!
http://www.makeit-loveit.com/search?q=maternity+band
Okay... apparently I don't know how to make it a link. When I try using the "link" icon it doesn't show up on my blog, only in my edit screen. Good times. Guess if you want to check out her blog you'll just have to copy/paste the address. Sorry.