Generally speaking, I’m quite a sane and rational person. Pre-pregnancy, I used to pride myself on my complete lack of emotion and there were only two guaranteed things in life that would make me shed real tears, Titanic (there was enough room on that door for both of them) and Turner and Hooch (it was an ugly dog but it didn’t deserve to die).
However, since my mini me took up permanent residency in my womb, I started noticing that keeping my emotions in check was becoming an increasingly difficult task.
Little things were starting to get to me, like every time I cut into a pepper and discovered a baby pepper within, it felt like murder; then there was the time I was inconsolable after accidentally adding a tin of Pedigree dog food to a pan of carrots.
Every-day dramas turned into hysterical hissy fits, leaving my other half to stare on, baffled, as I raged uncontrollably about the loss of my left slipper – WHERE COULD IT BE? WHERE????? The dog was always blamed, then hugged and cried upon when I inevitably found it about a foot away from where the right one had been.
Once pulled back from the edge of slipper gate or, even worse, no matching socks madness, I’d try and calm myself down by watching a spot of television. Big mistake. Evenings were filled with emotionally charged episodes of C4 documentaries such as One Born Every Minute, The Undateables and 24 Hours in A&E – complete and utter snot inducing sob-fests.
One of my biggest trigger points for tears was clothing. I’d managed to get away with normal clothes in a bigger size up until about the five-month mark – but now, the waistband on my ordinary leggings was making a break for my ankles – resulting in quite a few unfortunate ‘out and about’ incidents. Essentially, I was a cross between the baggy bottomed youths of today and Nora Batty.
I was getting way too comfortable in my ‘comfies’ and having read an incredibly factual and scientifically accurate article (in the Daily Mail) about how leggings actually make you fatter, I decided it was time to ditch the Lycra and delve into the hideous, baggy and downright dowdy world of maternity clothes.
Now my other half, whose inclination to spend money unnecessarily has already been well documented in previous blogs, was less than enthused at my revelation of ‘literally having no clothes’. His eyebrows rose significantly at this pretty bold statement, as I happened to be fully dressed at the time of making it and therefore, in his eyes, over exaggerating ever so slightly. I perhaps should have flounced into the kitchen in a state of near nudity to reinforce my case; at the very least it would have rendered him powerless, putting him in a confused and slightly aroused state that would have easily given me enough time to pilfer his wallet and head out to the Trafford Centre.
I could no longer do up any of my jeans, not even my emergency fat pair, saved from my carb-loaded and exercise-free university days. My husband’s suggestion to solving this problem? Why didn’t I try using a piece of string to bridge the Grand Canyon sized deficit between the two edges of my fly? It was a good question, why hadn’t I? Oh yes, we were not living in Oliver Twist times. That’s why.
In fear of being suffocated in his sleep by said jeans, or garrotted by the string, he handed over his wallet without the need for nudity, just the threat of casual violence.
So off I went, all enthused about the prospect of a glamourous new wardrobe, surely in today’s fashion-forward times, the high-street would be packed to the rafters with cool and tailored maternity wear…
Three hours later, the waterworks returned.
Pregnancy, apparently, is not en-vogue. Considering that on average there are approximately 100,000,000 women pregnant at any one time throughout the world, we are not considered enough of a population to be catered for on the high street.
After being told, time after time, that if a store did do a maternity range then it would only be available online, I was left with very few options.
The first of which was Topshop. It took me a little while to locate the collection of three rails at the back of the store, past the shoes and next to the pajamas. To be fair to them, what they did have was quite nice and not too dissimilar from their ‘normal’ sized clothes, but they were pricy. Now, I don’t mean designer pricy, but keep in mind that by the time you’re fat enough to actually fit into proper maternity clothes, you’ll only be wearing them for a few months. My internal debate with my ‘sensible side’ centered around whether I wanted to spend £40 on a pair of jeans that I knew I’d be ceremoniously burning as soon as I was thin again. I’d found three things I really liked but it was going to cost me upwards of £120 – at that rate, my new wardrobe was going to be seriously lacking in substance.
Disheartened, I headed off to my second and final option, H&M. Now H&M did have a bigger and more affordable range than Topshop, but it definitely wasn’t as stylish and that was the compromise. In the end I opted for a couple of pregnancy staples; a horizontally striped navy blue and white t-shirt, jeans, cords and a jumper dress. I had an epic fail walking past the maternity leggings and displayed the will power of an alcoholic at a free bar as I grabbed about four pairs (the comfiest things in existence to a pregnant lady – the waistband actually met my bra. Too good.).
My new haul gave me temporary satisfaction that, at the very least, I now had a few items of clothing that fitted and I didn’t have to worry about my husband luring me into some kind of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ situation, in a bid to stop me from spending money.
However, my short-lived happiness was just that, short.
Christmas was fast approaching and there were three things penciled into my Beagle kitchen calendar that filled me with full-on fashion faux pas panic:
- Charity fundraising ball – filled with premier league footballers and beautiful WAGs, or slutty, slightly less beautiful women trying to sleep with said footballers for a fee (courtesy of The Sun) – but all much thinner than me
- Work Christmas party – a glam night out in Manchester, filled with beautiful PR girls. Enough said
- A wedding – filled with lovely thin, happy people in all of their finery. At least there would be cake
There was one thing I knew for sure, I definitely did not have anything to wear, unless I could be magically transported to the 80’s or early 2000’s, when leggings and high heels were considered high fashion.
Google led me to the lovely, yet pricy, website for Tiffany Rose maternity dresses – all very chic, lacy and Holly Willoughby-esq, but they were so expensive. I considered eBay as an option, but they weren’t much cheaper and I had the added worry that someone might have given birth in one, or at least splashed amniotic fluid on the hem.
I decided to broach the situation with hubs over dinner one night. It went a little bit like this:
Me: “So I’m going to need to get a dress for the ball and my Christmas party, plus, it’s Ant & Jules’ wedding at the end of the month.”
Husband: “Don’t you have a dress that you can recycle?” (Said with hopeful enthusiasm)
Me: “I’m nearly eight months pregnant, I’m obviously not going to fit into my normal dresses and I don’t have any nice maternity dresses, just a jumper dress that I wear for work.” (Has not touched dinner and is staring at husband like he is from a different planet)
Husband: “Can’t you just make do and wear that? What’s the point in spending all that money on a dress that you aren’t going to wear again?” (Is watching television and hoovering up spaghetti bolognese at a rate of knots)
Me: “Just to confirm, you want me to wear a bobbled H&M jumper dress to a footballer’s ball and my Christmas party (Voice is cracking and the bottom lip is wobbling, still not touched dinner)
Husband: “Don’t you want to buy loads of nice clothes once you’ve had the baby? Makes sense doesn’t it?” (Is still watching television and destroying spaghetti bolognese)
Me: (No words – just uncontrollable sobs)
Husband: “Oh babe, don’t cry. Don’t you think that this is just your hormones?” (Finally stops eating and places a patronising hand on my thigh)
Schoolboy error.
Me: IT’S NOT MY HORMONES!!! YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!! (Sobs for half an hour and is too upset to eat the now cold spaghetti mascara bolognese)
Husband: “Debit or Credit Card?” (Distraught, guilt-ridden face)
Me: Both (Wipes snot from face and gets a magnum out of the freezer to replace ruined dinner and calories burnt from excessive wailing)
So I waddled back to Topshop to purchase a rather lovely and very stretchy number for my Christmas party. It wasn’t mumsy in the slightest, on the contrary, it was almost sexy, had it have not been for Mount Everest protruding from within.
My next win came in the form of a normal dress for normal sized folk from Dorothy Perkins. It was very similar to all of the very expensive Tiffany Rose dresses I’d seen online, but at a fraction of the price, so technically a bargain. I apprehensively approached the dressing room, aware of the girl on the door who blatantly thought I was going to try and fashion some kind of lace hat out it.
But, the maternity gods were looking kindly on me that day, and with a bit of wiggling, jiggling and dislocating of a shoulder – I was in! How do like ‘em apples skinny shop worker!
It was, however, a short lived smug-face victory as minutes later I discovered I was trapped within a lace straight jacket and that If I was going to leave the changing rooms without an inside out dress around my bust and head, I would need skinny shop worker’s help.
I appreciate the irony of when she came to my assistance, it would have looked at though I was, in fact, wearing some sort of avant-garde dress hat.
So the Christmas party came and went, and for what’s it was worth, I should have just worn a bin bag as I ended up feeling about as attractive as SuBo. The dress was not your typical pregnant lady outfit and I made a big mistake by deciding to stand on the end of the group photo; it looked as though Shamu had got glammed up and gone out photo bombing for the day.
The footballer’s ball loomed and to be honest I wasn’t overly enthusiastic at the prospect of going – who would? It would be torturous. All I wanted to do was sit at home in my mega leggings and eat my body weight in Mars ice cream bars.
My wish did not come true and, wearing the normal sized lace dress, I was dragged along for an evening filled of sympathetic head tilts, ‘when are you due’ polite chit-chats and copious amounts of orange juice.
The WAGs, wow the WAGs – good effort on their parts, all of Liverpool and Manchester’s fake tan resources must have been seriously depleted after that evening. A personal low was meeting a Spanish goddess who was also pregnant, about as far along as me, but she looked like she’d swallowed a Chelsea bun, whereas I looked like rugby player, with lace skin, who’d swallowed a space hopper. Not good for the self-esteem. We left shortly after to purchase carbs and tissues.
Kim Kardashian was once asked whether she had any fashion advice for pregnant women, her response was this:
“I recommend hiding for a good year and having no pregnancy style. That’s what I recommend. If you can do it, hide. Never leave the house.”
“That’s really my recommendation. Wear a huge blanket.”
Maybe Kim is right, maybe it is best to stay at home in Lycra, committing carbocide and riding out the fashion wave until you can fit into clothes that don’t have pretend zips and buttons on them.
So, if in doubt of what to wear while pregnant, just stick to the all-important mantra of: What Would Kim Do? And you’ll never go wrong…
Oh and men, remember if you’re overly fond of your scrotal sack, you may want to avoid using the following sentence:
“Don’t you think it’s just your hormones?”
One of 'those' mothers 