1. String ties in the back.

Look, I don’t have a waist. Let’s not give me a three-foot-long string to tie behind my ribcage (which I can barely do without getting light headed) to pretend like I have a waist. Because I don’t have one. All that string does is get tangled in the laundry, untie itself and trip me when I walk, or catch on things like I’ve been tethered to the wall with a little fabric bungee cord.

2. Extremely LOW CUT necks.

I’ve bitched about this before but once, twice, three times the bosom? That’s enough! I understand my breasts are bigger. It’s hard to miss - in fact, people who didn’t know I was pregnant guessed that I was because my already ample shelf-of-womanhood was bigger, and resembled less of a shelf and more of a tectonic plate. So why must I be constantly vigilant that I haven’t winked a nipple at someone on the street because the neckline of my maternity top is pluging into Jennifer Lopez territory? Knock it off!

3. Cap sleeves.

Now, look. This particular pregnant lady? Puffy and swollen, both at the start of the day and at the end of the day. So do I want additional attention paid to my arms and breasts by putting tiny, tight, ineffective sleeves on my shoulders? They don’t keep me warm when I get a chill. They don’t even look good. They make the thinnest of upper arms look like stuffed spiral cut hams. What is wrong with normal sleeves, for the love of chickens?

4. Empire waists.

Who in the name of potpourri decided that the only effective way to clothe a growing pregnant belly, especially if each belly is a different size on different women, is to move the waistline of a garment up under the ribcage? Let me line up the flaws to this realignment: first, not everyone’s boobs fit in the space above that neckline, so effectively I personally am drawing a line across my bosom when donning an ill-fitting empire waist. Second, it just makes everything from the ribcage down look like instead of a garment, I’m wearing an art smock. I might as well be wearing clear plastic with big cartoon characters because I look like it’s art time in my world. I do have other maternity shirts that are flattering and NOT empire waisted, most notably a shirt that has ruching on the side that allows me to fill in the front of the shirt as needed (though, of course, it does plunge down to my belly button in the neckline area) and another that’s draped with a soft fabric from hip to hip, again, with no empire waist in sight.

I love most of my maternity wardrobe, though I do wish it were easier to find clothing that didn’t cost an obscene amount or a manufacturer that didn’t stop offering maternity altogether (ARE YOUR EARS BURNING LANDS’ END DAMN YOU DAAAAAAAMN YOU!). But man, someday, I will be very very glad to see the end of the tug-and-twist and double-check-your-nipples routine every time I put on a shirt.