When I was pregnant with the Captain, there were very few places to buy maternity clothes. There weren’t any Baby Gaps or Old Navys in Ottawa yet, nor even a WalMart, and my local Bay and Zellers didn’t carry maternity clothes at the time. Basically the only place for me to shop was the Thyme Maternity, an upscale mall-based boutique where t-shirts cost $30 and prices go up from there. I did my best to buy stuff on sale, but I still wound up paying too much for what is a very basic maternity wardrobe.

Despite the fact that the Thyme stuff was really expensive, it also SUCKED ASS, and by my 8th month, everything had shrunk to the point where the shirts would no longer cover the stretch panel in the front of my pants. I got really fed up, and I had a lot of time on my hands because I wasn’t working, so I decided to go to the fabric store and stock up and make myself some Big Ass Maternity Clothes (oh! new marketing idea!), which would be sure to cover up everything.

The Captain was a winter baby so I mostly made long-sleeved blazer-type items that could be worn over the too-short Thyme shirts to create an acceptable outfit. But I had some leftover fabric, so I made myself exactly one (1) t-shirt. This t-shirt — the Shirt Of Last Resort — is gigantic. Scarlett O’Hara could throw it around her waist and fiddle-dee-dee herself off to the Spring Ball. But it was highly suitable for my last month of Captain pregnancy, in that I felt modestly covered up, if not exactly fashionable.

(Interestingly, I don’t remember wearing the shirt with Gal Smiley…but I am learning that my whole second pregnancy is something of a blur.)

So this past weekend, I noticed that even my most reliable Old Navy staples were getting a little short, and I remembered the Shirt Of Last Resort. I pulled it out and I was sure it would just be huge, huge, huge, but…it fit. Quite nicely.

What does this mean? TIME TO COME OUT, BABY.