23 Weeks, 1 Day - The Pregnant Bridesmaid

Back when  I first started this blog in April, I wrote this post on things that I was worried about.  One of them was about how I had become pregnant a couple months earlier than  I had expected, and that the dress I had ordered for Esme's wedding wasn't going to fit me by the time the wedding came along:

2) This seems pretty minor, but for some reason I’m stressed about it. For Esme’s wedding, I ordered a dress that’s one size larger in anticipation of getting pregnant. Now I’m worried that it won’t be big enough and that I won’t have a dress for her wedding. This seems so trivial as I’m writing this, but I don’t want to be a burden to her and her wedding. I’ve called the consultant to see if I can switch to another dress. Something tells me I won’t be able to, and I guess I’ll just make do with whatever happens.

Here's a picture of the dress:

Notice how form fitting it is, especially around the torso? With my normal Sharon body, this would have been an awesome dress, and would have looked great on me.  With a pregnant Sharon body? Not as much so.

Well, as it turned out, I wasn't allowed to return the dress, or swap for a larger one since I had already put my order in.  Three weeks ago, I went to Patty's house to pick up my dress.  My bump was already starting to make itself known, so I thought I'd try it on just to see how it looked.  As it turned out, it fit juuuuuuust right.  This actually was NOT a good thing, because if I got any bigger, this dress WOULD NOT fit! And I knew I was going to get bigger!

Last week, on the day of Esme's bridal shower, I tried the dress on again.  Yup, it zipped up still, but the entire dress shifted UP to where the top of the bodice was by my collarbone and the skirt was mid-thigh.  Oh no, this was not going to do AT ALL!! And this was a whole week before the wedding-- who knew how much more I was going to grow over the next week?

I had a plan though.  I remember how my wedding dress, which had been used on the set of Passions the soap opera (shameless plug!), came with a panel of fabric in the back where the zipper was.  I guess the actress who had worn the dress was too busty for the dress and couldn't zip it all the way up, so the tailor added the panel to connect the unzipped back together.  I had plans to do something similar, and went on Sunday (a week ago) to Joanns Fabrics to get the materials to do this.  But since I knew I was going to get bigger, I waited as long as I could to modify the dress since I knew I'd get bigger even just over the course of another week.  Plus I was in Portland and Seattle for work anyway, and couldn't get around to it until this past Friday (the day before the wedding)!  At the bridal shower, the girls asked me what I was going to do with my dress.  "Don't worry!" I told them, "I've got a plan!"  Yeah, I've got a plan, I thought, "But probably not a very good one,  and it's probably going to look not-so-good." Inside I had my fingers crossed that I'd be able to pull off some miracle with this dress.

Friday turned out to be a super busy day.  I had gotten home from Portland the night before at around 12:30 am, and was soooo tired when I woke up.  The morning  started out spending some QT with little Audrey and I made her some breakfast and sat with her.  Then I was on a conference call from 8-9.  Then we dropped Audrey off at day care and went to our OB/Gyn appointment at 10 am (more on that later).  We got home at 11:30 am, and that's when I started to work on the dress.  Very quickly, I realized that the fabric panel was not going to work... with my bulging belly, some places needed to be looser and others needed to be tighter... there was no precise way to sew eye hooks into the fabric panel to match my weird pregnant contours. I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  I jumped onto another call, at 1 pm, which went until 1:30. During that call, I had a sudden epiphany: a drawstring back! Like a corset! That would make it loose and tight where I needed it to! That's what I would do!

But  I didn't have the chance to try making one.  By the time I got off of the phone,  I had to get ready to go to Esme's rehearsal, which was scheduled for 3:30, and which meant that I had to leave the house by 2:30 latest.  Stu and I ended up talking after my call since we hadn't seen each other all week, and I didn't realize how quickly time passed.  I looked at the clock and it was 2:45!! By the time I got out of the house, it was 3:00!! I got there 15 minutes late, but just in time for the rehearsal to start.  PHEW!

By the time I got home from the rehearsal dinner, it was 11 pm.  FINALLY, I could start on modifying the dress! Esme had bought me some of the fabric that the dress was made of,  and I took that and cut some strips and began sewing them into ribbon cords to make the loops and the drawstring for the back of the dress.  By 2:00 am, I was close to being done.  I was so tired.  I had to wake Stu up to help me try on the dress.  It wasn't the cleanest work, but it was functional... and it  was  also  really tight, making it hard to breathe.  Oh well, I thought, this was as good as it was going to get.

The next (i.e.later that) morning I woke up at 6 am to work on the veil to help cover the corset back since it was so lumpy looking.  I started out with a needle and thread, but quickly abandoned that for the glue gun, which made it so much faster.  By 6:45 I was done, and I jumped in the shower, gathered all of my stuff up, and dashed out the door bu 7:20 to be at Esme's hotel for hair and makeup by 8 am.  I was running late again, which lately seems to be the story of my life.

Here's how the dress turned out:

Well, all in all it turned out OK.  I was a little worried at the church when I was first wearing the dress because it felt really tight around my torso, and I could hardly breathe.  And the church was really hot and for little while there, I was sweaty and a little short of breath and started seeing spots.  Patty helped me loosen the back a little and it seemed to help, but it was still very uncomfortable.  I didn't know how I was going to  make  it to the reception, and was ready to switch into my backup dress, which was my bridesmaid dress from Luisa's wedding.  Luckily, the dress expanded throughout the day, and by the time the reception came along, it actually fit fairly comfortably!!  It all worked out in the end!

Here are some pics from the wedding.  Dress looked good.  Mommy and Daddy looked good.  Audrey was super cute and had lots for fun with Charlotte and Mikayla.  Overall it was a great day.

And I guess that's the moral of the story.  That things seem to work themselves out.  I'll have to remember that during the moments that I worry and lose sleep during this pregnancy.