Fitness & Health: Ruched

I've talked about this in my weekly pregnancy updates, but aside from pants, I haven't been wearing a lot of maternity clothes. I'm fortunate to have a lot of looser tops in my existing wardrobe so a lot of the outfits I'm posting aren't anything new if you've been reading my blog for awhile---they just fit differently now because of my shape and it's fun to document that.

I think during a first pregnancy buying maternity clothes can be very exciting. I've definitely checked out Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod and GAP's maternity selections, but the truth is, I didn't really want to spend a ton of money buying new clothes that I would only wear for a short period of time.

I actually know several bloggers who also transitioned a lot of their existing wardrobe into their maternity wear, so it was fun to follow their pregnancies and see how they were styling some of the items that they wore pre-pregnancy.

Obviously I'll eventually get to the point where I will need maternity clothes, so I realize that I'll have to transition into the pieces my co-worker generously passed along to me, but until then, I've been enjoying experimenting with the pieces already in my closet.

One of those pieces is this dress I got at Banana Republic. I actually purchased it early into my pregnancy anticipating that I'd be able to wear it as my belly grows because it has this great ruching and is super stretchy---and long---which is key when your belly makes everything shorter.

It's such a simple piece and I've enjoyed wearing it through all three trimesters.