I think we can all agree that for a 30 year old married woman, showing any part of my midriff, even accidentally, is just not great. However, I am also a very small and apparently oddly shaped woman. I actually have no shape (think about a board…that is my shape), so I have to buy jeans and pants that sit low because there are no known pants that actually fit me in both the hips and the waist. This causes an obvious gap problem at times. I try to buy long shirts and layer them, but sometimes I still experience issues.

One advantage of having so many pregnant friends is that I have been made aware of the Bella Band. This is a band that sits over your jeans and covers your midriff when you are pregnant so that you can unbutton the jeans, etc, and still be covered in that time between regular clothing and full-on maternity clothing. I think these are super neat. However, obviously I am not pregnant and not planning on being. I found out this week that there is a non-pregnant version of the same thing, they are called JAKS.

But here is the issue: JAKS are around twice as expensive ($38 for one) as the maternity bands that I’ve found. And JAKS come in only 3 colors. Some of the bands come in tons of colors and you can get them in multi-packs ($56 for 3 different colors).

So my dilemna is…is it right/fair for me to buy something that is specifically for pregnancy when I am definitely not? Is that cheating or would it look like I’m trying to be something I’m not? Would I be benefitting from the cool accessories while avoiding the actual pain of the whole pregnancy thing? And is that tacky? At the same time, who has $38 per band? That is a huge chunk of our monthly clothing budget. Comments are welcome!