The Pregnancy Surcharge

Tonight I went to the drugstore in search of some cocoa butter lotion for my stretched out, itchy, burning tummy. I found the assortment of cocoa butter lotions ... on the bottom shelf. Hello?? Pregnant lady here ... if I have to bend or squat it's not so easy getting back up these days. Could they make this any more annoying?

As a matter of fact, they could and did. Cocoa butter lotion specifically for stretch marks on pregnant bellies cost $5.99 and cocoa butter wasn't even a main ingredient. The third ingredient was cocoa butter seed extract. So I searched around a bit more and found a $.99 4 oz. tub of cocoa butter lotion that actually had cocoa butter as the second ingredient.

The other product I've been searching for is some sort of suspender or belly belt to help keep my pants from falling off my non-existent waist. At the maternity store they wanted to sell me a belly belt that looks like a tube top for $22. Yeah, right ... why not just get some sock suspenders and attach them to the top of my pants and the bottom of my bra? In fact, there is a product that will do this (www.bellyup.com) and costs $13 for a pair. This is basically just suspender clips - available at any fabric store for $1.50 a pair - plus some 3/4" elastic. Any idiot can put these together for less than half what this Belly Up company is charging.

Any product with the word pregnancy slapped on it seems to be subject to a surcharge.