Le Tote is a subscription clothing rental service, which is genius when it comes to maternity wear. For $79 a month, you can select four pieces of clothing to borrow, wear them as many times as you want for as long as you want, and then them ship back (you don't even have to wash them!) and swap for new items. Le Tote also has a slightly more affordable plan (at $69 a month) that lets you borrow three clothing items and two accessories; since my jewelry and bags are the only things guaranteed to fit me for all 40 weeks, the clothing-only plan seemed more my speed.
I recognized pretty quickly that buying a lot of stuff during my pregnancy was going to turn out to be pointless—I'd really only need the things for a few months, and I'd probably hate it all by the time Pregnancy #2 rolled around. Le Tote was the perfect solution for a shopaholic who has to calm down for a little while. (Hi, it's me!) When I first signed up for Le Tote (and they graciously offered me a comped subscription for this piece), I went through and marked all the items I was interested in borrowing and saved them to a virtual closet. To decide what I wanted in each shipment, I'd just check the forecast for the coming week and select whatever matched the weather. They also have an extremely helpful size predictor: You put in your measurements (hip, bust, waist, etc.), and they will tell you what size they think will fit best. There was a skirt I ordered that I added to my cart in a size small, but the fit predictor popped up an alert that the small would be too tight across my hips, so I went with the medium, which did end up fitting. This took all the guesswork out of maternity sizing, which is an amazing thing.
I mostly used Le Tote for dresses, which were cute, comfortable, and work appropriate. I had a rehearsal dinner for a beach wedding in late October and this tie-waist shirtdress was perfect, but I also was able to wear it to the office later that week. A faux leather pencil skirt with a belly panel was exactly my style, and I could pair it with any of my longer nonmaternity tops. My only complaint was that they don't have a ton of pants—the one pair I received from them looked like it would be office-friendly on the website, but when it arrived it was really just sweatpants. (Hey, pregnant ladies always need sweatpants, so it wasn't a total loss.) I never used this feature, but if you fall absolutely in love with something, you can buy it to own at a reduced price, so there's that too!
