23: The Word Maternity and The Pant and The Peeing of The Pants

Maternity pants are fabulous and terrible for several reasons.

Terrible:
- They sag down because there is only an elastic band keeping them up. It's like trying to keep pants on an egg with a slightly stretchy ribbon. It just doesn't work. Gravity and the maternity pant are not friends.
- I mean. They're called MATERNITY PANTS. How much more frump can we get?
- I thought of several other reasons that maternity pants are terrible but I didn't include them here because I realized the issue is actually with the design of the maternity body rather than the maternity pant. But that pants on an egg illustration is pretty accurate and "It's a real problem, Tina."

Fabulous:
- Relief for the growing belly, even if it "grew" a couple inches in 30 minutes because of a big, delicious burrito.
- They are SO FAST to pull down in an emergency pee situation.

I can't even tell you how many times I've peed my pants a little bit since being pregnant on the first go around, the decline of continence since having that watermelon pass through my vagina, and now this pregnancy. It's like my muscles down there are on strike. I was less than excited when I recently had to make the switch from regular pants to maternity pants because of the things I loathe about maternity pants - and the fact that they're called maternity pants.

But then I had my first emergency pee - the kind were I had already peed a little because of a sneeze or a laugh or simply misjudging how full my bladder is and how serious my muscles were about their strike - and if I didn't get to the bathroom FAST it was all going to come out no matter how hard I crossed my legs. And MAN did those maternity pants earn their keep. I pulled those puppies down so fast it was as if they were pre-lubed. They slid down and BOOM I was hitting the pee target. Which is always inside the toilet bowl.

(Or really anywhere but the inside of my pants.)