My first trimester essentials

As I'm nearing the end of my first trimester, I thought I'd share a few things that have been very helpful to me these first few weeks of pregnancy.

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Rubber bands or hair ties: Whether it was due to bloat or baby, I've enjoyed keeping my shorts unbuttoned for a few weeks. Despite my hopes of looking like Kate Middleton, I've been doing this trick longer than I care to admit. I can button up my pants if I have to, but why bother when this is so much more comfortable?

Xhilaration® Juniors Cotton With Lace Bikini

Lace-waist panties: I think it was in my 11th week that I realized I had been pretty much exclusively wearing only my underwear that had a thick lace waistband. Why? Because those were the ones that were not digging into my belly. I decided to supplement my meager stock of lace-waist undies and happily, found a whole bin of clearance lace-waist panties at my local Target. (Unfortunately, they're not on clearance online.) The stretchy lace waistband makes this underwear so much more comfortable! 

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Something to hold up your pants: I've got three pairs of shorts and only one pair has buttons. The other two (the two I wear the most) have a lay-flat kind of hook that you cannot stick rubber bands through. So, I had to have something to hold these shorts up! Enter the Blanqi BodyStyler. I knew I'd be wanting one after my friend Kallah touted it's fabulousness. Bought it. Loved it. Only annoying thing about it? You can see the Blanqi when I wear it under tank tops which is something I do almost daily in the summertime. Well, another friend, Katie, is a few weeks behind me and had bought a BeBand in a size too small and offered to give it to me since she couldn't return it. Why, yes, please! The Blanqi is a lot of things and the BeBand is just a belly band. I prefer how the Blanqi feels when I wear it, but while I don't need the belly support, the BeBand does just fine. However, when I wear tops that hide the Blanqi, I always choose that over the BeBand.

Blousy tops:

While I've been in this awkward bloated stage, I've had friends be like, "Oh, look! You have a little belly!" Nope. I just had lunch. This has made me lean towards tops that are a little more generous. Unfortunately, I think I owned one blousy top (shown), so I headed to Marshall's to scour the racks cute non-maternity tops. I ended up getting two cute tops that are things I would wear, pregnant or not, but still did some camouflaging.

However, as of 12 weeks, I decided to go ahead and embrace my kind-of bump and I no longer feel like I  have to camouflage it. Of course, I think it looks a lot more obvious to me than to anyone else.

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Water: Pregnant or not, water is my drink of choice. I don't know that I've always been good about drinking as much water as I should (half my body weight in ounces each day), but I've been trying to keep up. And drinking water is really good for you while pregnant!

Naps: I have spent a few weeks being super sleepy and naps have been my best friend! I'm blessed to only work part time. I'm also blessed to have a job where the kids practice and play so hard, that I have, a few times, falled asleep on the couch with one or two other kiddos with me. I think those have been my only essentials so far. Now that I'm approaching the 2nd tri, any recommendations for things that will soon be my must-haves?