I might work with numbers and spreadsheets every day, but I work in the fashion retail business. So I am surrounded by clothes. Soooo many clothes. Every day. And I have been for the past 12 years. I blame this for my slight shopping addiction. Add to the mix that I work for a company that offers free next day delivery (well, so cheap it’s basically free), free returns which I can do without leaving my office, and has a post room for all staff orders which is exactly 35 steps from my desk, you can understand how placing an order pretty much every other day just can’t be helped. Oh, and I forgot to mention my staff discount. So now you get it, right?

But when I fell pregnant, my shopping habits changed. I envied the maternity style of celebs on instagram but I suddenly became all sensible and didn’t think I should buy buyself a whole new wardrobe. Seriously, I look back now and don’t recognise myself!

I actually carried on wearing my normal clothes until I was about 20 weeks pregnant. I did have a small bump earlier than that, but my dress of choice being a loose fitting shift dress, I managed to get away with it for a while. But as the bump got bigger, the dresses still fit, but now I just looked fat in them – it was time to buy some maternity clothes.

I tried maternity jeans but we just didn’t get on. Maybe my bump was too small when I first got them, I don’t know, but I found myself constantly pulling them up, even when I got bigger.

So then I shopped for some dresses. I found the best style for me now was actually ‘bodycon’. Normally I hate bodycon, I don’t even like that word. I prefer a straight silhouette, hence the shift dresses – more sophisticated imo. But having a bump, I felt so much more confident in a fitted dress and actually felt better about my body than I ever had before. So I went and bought myself all of three new dresses. ASOS was my saviour here. And whilst browsing their maternity section, I came across a couple of flattering skater style dresses, one of which became my standard ‘going out’ dress (you know, for all the partying I was doing at 7 months pregnant). And that was it. That was all I bought. 5 dresses to last me 4 months. I can’t believe how sensible I was. No one probably even noticed, but it near killed me, recycling those dresses over and over again. First world problems hey.

A few words of advice:

Whilst I was still in my spend-happy mode in early pregnancy, I actually bought a load of maternity clothes in the sale. Don’t do this as you don’t know what your body shape will be like once you actually need maternity clothes. None of them fit and were totally unflattering on me – thank god for eBay.

Talking of eBay – I probably should have looked on there for my maternity wardrobe. There must be other women out there who made the same mistake as me – I could have had so many more outfits without splurging – which is the last thing you want to be doing with a baby on the way.

And finally, don’t wear normal tights. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t see the point of maternity tights when my normal tights just stretched easily over my bump. Now I know all that itching was nothing to do with my pregnancy and everything to do with my tights. Why did no one tell me this before???

Until next time,

Love S xx