Hi Grub

A Belly band is an elastic type of strap that you use when you can't do up your button anymore on your pants. You use the band to basically be able to do up your pants as your belly grows. They have 2 different sizes of bands in the pack and when your tummy gets really big you also have material that you thread onto the belly band to cover the gap up as you can't do up your zipper.

I also have bought a couple of waist bands as well (they are the one's you are talking about) but at the moment I can get away wirth just having a long top over my work pants or jeans to hide the belly band.

I found mine really hard to find, but I live in the country and we only have 1 maternity shop (which is closed on Sunday's) so ended up getting it from Bra's N Things. For a $30 investment and not having to buy maternity jeans or maternity pants for work, I think it was a fantastic investment.