hilkat

As I sat watching the Glamour 100 Best Dressed List on fiver last week, apart from resisting the urge to gouge out my own eardrums so I didn’t have to listen to the ridiculous commentary anymore, I felt a connection with Reese Witherspoon. They asked her how she defined her style. She said:-

“Whatever’s clean and whatever fits, being a Mom”.

For the first weeks of my pregnancy, that was my mantra when choosing an outfit. “Clean-coversmystomach-doesn’tshowoffmyarse-clean-coversmystomach-doesn’tshowoffmyarse.” Soon after that, I dropped the “clean” and favoured pyjamas with yesterdays dinner down them. My life became an endless cycle of sleep-eat-moan-cry-put on hideous clothes-moan-eat-moan-cry-take off hideous clothes-eat-sleep. I refused to leave the house and resented having to go to work. Tantrums became the norm, and the other half - who used to look at me with adoration - now just looked at me with fear. I launched a sausage sandwich at the wall because he dared to put ketchup on it. I threw shoes across the room because none of my clothes fitted me anymore. I cried constantly because I was so tired. The early weeks were NOT fun for anyone concerned.

Then one day I woke up, and instead of running to the bathroom to cling to the edge of the sink and retch noisily, I leaned over, gave the other half a kiss, and said “lets go out for the day.” He looked at me warily and said, “what?” I laughed and jumped out of bed, feeling rather more like my old self, just a little fatter. And not fatter in a bad way - I was having a baby, I hadn’t eaten all the pies and just ‘got fat’. (OK, if you want to be technical, I HAD eaten rather a lot….) I felt good. I now believe that the reason women sleep so much for the first weeks of expectancy isn’t because they are building a baby and this is when all the important bits happen. Noooooo, that’s just what we’ve been led to think. It’s because our bodies are storing energy and preparing us for the next stage.

Shopping.

There are two main areas of shopping to do when you’re pregnant. Things for the baby, obviously. And things for you. The baby category is full of cute clothes and slightly alarming technical contraptions (have you ever seen a man try out a breast pump? Now that is entertainment) so we’ll skim over that one.

I soon discovered that my shopping needs extended far beyond the perameters of clothing. I started in Primark, grabbing greedily at things - dresses, tops, knitwear (long fine knit cardigans are both a top trend AND godsend when your backside is the size of a small country), shoes (”well my feet are all swollen so my old shoes don’t fit anymore. No, of COURSE you can wear six inch heels…”) and bags (”I have to have the right one or it throws my back out which is really bad now I’m pregnant”) - and then moved on through H&M, Topshop and Debenhams. Our last port of call was where I had my first encounter with maternity wear. See, to me, even the name is unattractive. “Maternity”. It conjours up images of sack-like dresses and milk stained shapeless t-shirts, paired with flat Clarks shoes and a “sensible” bag. The kind of thing that makes you look twice in the street, and not in a good way. There is nothing about these clothes that I like. Not a thing. For a start, all the trousers and jeans have this massive wide piece of elastic made to cover your bump. So your trousers actually finish just under your (newly sagging) boobs.Now, I can high-waist with the best of them, and will continue to do so after the birth of my son, but these garments are ridiculous. The tops are, at best, dull, and at worst, downright ugly. I gave them a fair go, I really did. I even tried on and bought a pair of black maternity work trousers. They are currently residing in the back of my cupboard, with the label still attached (right next to the four maternity bras I bought after being bullied into it by a pushy sales assistant in Marks & Spencers. Bugger the rules, I’m keeping my underwire).

Gwen Stefani did not do painful maternity wear. Neither did Angelina Jolie. And after trawling the internet, I found no evidence of Nicole Richie sporting trousers which promise to “grow with her”. She clearly never felt the urge to give up any of her style rules, and was instead snapped wearing a variety of empire-line dresses, high heels, leggings and trilbys. Not a stretchy waistband in sight.

I decided from that point on that I would never venture into that section of the shop again, which sadly leaves no option but to keep buying new clothes in bigger sizes to accommodate my expanding stomach. And now, every time I open Vogue, Elle, or even Heat, and see something I like, without looking up from the magazine I call out “my clothes are a little bit tight, can we pop into town at the weekend?” and before you know it, that new maxi dress is sitting at home in my cupboard, jostling for space with my gladiator sandals and oversize bag. Purely for practical reasons, obviously.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.