Reflections on a Dress

The Importance of Clothes

This past year has been particularly hard for me. We'd been married for ten years, and in that time we've had seven kids and four losses. Nick had been stuck in a dead end job and we were saddled with lots of debt. Eventually we were able to buy a small house and Nick found a better job, in a year or two he even got a raise and promotion. Things started looking better. We decided that it was finally time to focus on my health, and get me back to where I should be so that I could take care of things better. Part of that meant that we had decided not to have anymore children for a few years.

But God tends to laugh when mere mortals make plans. In retrospect we found out that I ovulate twice (that means two eggs each month). That explains our set and a half of twins. It also explains baby number eight.

There were problems from the first week, not the least of which was my anxiety and depression. I was so sick that I lived on ginger candy (I HATE ginger candy), and I was unable to get a doctor appointment until the second trimester. By January my anxiety was in full swing and I started having panic attacks every time I thought about the baby, or the birth, or being pregnant.

Meanwhile, life went on. The older kids were doing well in school, the little kids were tearing up the house and learning to talk and jump and do toddler things. I started sewing again, because I like it and growing kids need lots of clothes. I was able to use part of our tax return to buy a lot of fabric (six months later I still haven't used all of it!).

I finally got in to see a doctor, and found out that they considered me healthy, and our baby girl was also healthy. Praise God! And I started seeing a counselor for the panic attacks. We were able to pinpoint my triggers, exactly when the attacks started, and find ways to stop the attacks and cope with the anxiety. One of the coping techniques we devised was designing clothes.

I'd already been pulling fabrics from my order and figuring out what they could be. The kids had all picked out their favorites and were designing clothes for themselves. I had already started making maternity dresses and shirts. I think over the course of four months I made one garment a week. But there was a special fabric that I was saving for a special dress.

It was a double brushed poly, a cloth that drapes like silk and feels as soft as butterfly wings. The colors were burgundy roses on a white background. It's not something that I would have ever picked for myself, I didn't think I was a large “floral print” type of person. I started thinking of a full length dress that I could wear both while pregnant and afterwards throughout the summer.

The panic attacks became less frequent through the spring but they did keep coming. And I kept designing clothes. I mixed the bodice from a dress pattern and the body of my favorite shirt pattern and created the perfect tank top. Then I just graded the sides out and pulled the hem down a few inches to make it the perfect maternity shirt. Since I designed it for my body specifically, it's probably the most comfortable shirt that I've ever worn. I'm still very proud of it, and I made several of them. One day I decided to see what it would look like as a maxi dress. And just like that I had the pattern for my special rose dress. All that I needed now was a shrug to go over my shoulders.

Then one of the pattern designers I follow had a giveaway contest. The prize was a bundle pattern set for a cami tunic/dress and a shrug. It was the perfect shrug. Absolutely perfect! And I decided that if I didn't win the contest I would purchase the pattern anyway. The entry was simple: all you had to do was “like” the post and comment with what fabrics you would use to make that pattern. I commented with a picture of my Special Rose fabric and a coordinating baby blue solid that matched perfectly.

I won!

I'm still excited about that. I won a contest. I won the pattern that I needed for the shrug for my Special Dress.

But I didn't make it right away. I was still using my Special Dress to stop the panic attacks; I was falling asleep thinking about it because I couldn't think about holding my baby girl because that meant I would have to go through the birth. And I couldn't handle thinking about that. So I made a few test pieces.

On the doctor’s advice we planned an induction with an epidural, so that the birth would go slowly enough that I could be in charge of what happened. We arranged to have the kids spend a week with my parents, planned how we would take care of the dog, and what days Nick would take off of work. The school year was wrapping up, and the kids grades were coming back (they did excellent).

Two weeks before the induction I made my Special Dress. I think it was the last thing I made before she was born. I planned to wear it at her baptism, so I was trying not to wear it too much before then. But it was so comfortable that I practically lived in it for that last week.

It was a horrible week. A fitting end to a horrible pregnancy. The whole week was one long panic attack. School was out and the kids were bouncing off the walls. The weather was terrible—in the upper 90's with very high humidity and thunderstorms. But I was wearing my Special Dress, and at least physically I felt like myself again.

God laughs at human plans.

We missed the induction. Nick says baby girl decided to kick the door down early. The induction was scheduled for 11 AM, by then she was already three hours old and we were cleaned up and sleeping again.

We've finally adjusted to life with a new baby. We got rid of our dog. We played for most of the summer. And we had her Baptism. I wore my Special Dress, on her Special Day, and it was just as perfect as I'd hoped it would be.

I design and make my own clothes as a way to express my individuality, and my personality. I'm a very introverted person, I don't like talking, and people exhaust me. But in my clothes, the clothes that I make for myself, the clothes that no one else has, the close that speak volumes about who I am and what I like, I am comfortable enough to face the world. And to face myself. I couldn't control the birth, and I couldn't handle the panic that came with it. But I could recover. And I can smile each day again.