Are they still called "maternity clothes" if you're wearing them & your baby is five?

I have a confession.  When I started my clothing blog, I said I was ready to start buying clothing that made me feel pretty.  I wanted to go apple picking with the family in some cute outfit and feel happy when I looked at myself in the pictures.   I did a big purge, I made it sound like I got rid of all the clothes no longer worked for me.  I lied.  Deep in the pile of sweaters I kept was this brown sweater.  It was a hand-me-down, so it's probably ten years old, and pilled, and it shrunk a little funny, but it didn't make it into the purge.  Why?  It's my last article of maternity clothes.

My sister was pregnant last year, and I gave her most of my things.  I "forgot" to give her this.   I've talked to my friends who are moms, and most confess to wearing some maternity clothing long after the baby stage is over.  What keeps us hanging on to those elastic pants and tent shirts?  I've identified four reasons:
Reason 1. They stretch.  Seriously, all pants should have that waistband.  That's a perfectly good reason.
Reason 2. When we have babies, we often go into martyr mode.  "The baby seems fussy; I'll buy myself pants some other time."  We're left wearing the last things we bought for ourselves.
Reason 3. Maternity clothes are EXPENSIVE.  When you know you spent a fortune on an article of clothing, you want to get your use out of it.
Reason 4.  This reason is the hardest to define, but I think it explains the brown sweater.  I wore that sweater about once a week during the times in my life when I was the most excited, the most hopeful.  Then, I wore it when I was newly in love with my perfect tiny people.  I swear, half the pictures I have of me with my daughter as a newborn were in that sweater.  I wore it many times on those days when all I did was in wonder.  Then I washed it, over and over again, because, well, babies spit up.  That sweater looked a little beat up because of those days. It was a reminder of that sweet time, so I clung to it.

It's hard to accept when you know you won't be having any more babies, when that time in your life has passed.  It's tempting to cling to a symbol of those days, and it's ok if you do.  No one should judge you for what you hide in the back of your sweater chest.  I, however, decided it's time to donate my last maternity sweater.  There's someone out there now who can wear it as she anticipates her little baby, and when she first takes that baby home.  And I can look for a new sweater to wear to go apple picking.