The exhausting pregnancy symptom I wish I had been warned about

At some point in my pregnancy, Instagram started bombarding me with photos of one pregnant Margot Robbie. It felt like my feed was tricking me in a particularly mean way: Hey, fast-growing lady, wanna see how the most beautiful woman in the world handles this? And I did. After a while, I guess my feed became self-fulfilling: I kept looking at photos of Robbie, my beaming pregnancy enemy, so the algorithm kept offering me more. I wanted to see what she looked like; I wanted to know what she was wearing. (Spoiler alert: she looked great, obvs.)

Margot has now had her babybut she still shows up on the grid. Wearing loose dungarees and sunglasses, looking chic and a little tired, she strolls next to her husband pushing the stroller. And I’m still here wondering what on earth are you supposed to wear. Because while I received a lot of hard-earned wisdom and advice during my pregnancy (some solicited, some not), no one warned me that putting together a decent outfit would be an endeavor more fraught than the politics surrounding getting an epidural.

Of course – duh – it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that growing a human would mean my body would change and my normal clothes would no longer fit me. Somewhat unfair perhaps, since I’ve also been permanently pooped on for the emotional vulnerability of a 13-year-old girl whose favorite boy band just broke up. But the most normal thing in the world. It annoyed me from a financial point of view, this uncomfortable burden on the female body, but maybe that’s because I’m also bombarded with the many other things I should or shouldn’t buy. Do I really need to spend over $100 on a pelvic floor trainer that looks more like something you’d attach to a clipboard than a you-know-what, or else deal with permanent incontinence forever? No wonder so many women have offered to send me their spreadsheets of the things worth paying for.

Anyway, I finally accepted my fate, and in my second trimester I decided that I would invest in a few items that I could happily live in for the rest of the year, that would make me feel both comfortable and stylish, and , most importantly, , allows me to wear clothes so I can leave the house. Only I didn’t anticipate the next part of this undignified saga: 99 percent of maternity clothes are terrible.

It’s hard enough – literally – to get dressed when you’re pregnant because you no longer have a center of gravity. But the fact that there are no beautiful clothes makes it absolutely impossible. Trust me, I’ve tried to find them. I shopped the maternity brands; added to cart; waited for the packages; and tried on the clothes with optimism that quickly faded into despair. I started seeing the man at the post office more than my actual midwife as I went through the complicated process of sending them all back. There were dresses that looked refined on the models, but gave me the impression that I had walked into a flea market at the local Women’s Institute. There were penny jumpsuits that were baggy in all the wrong places. And there were the bodycon songs that turned me into a walking person MailOnline headline: JESSIE SHOWS OFF HER BUMP AS SHE GIVES SHOPS AT SAINSBURY’S.

Dismayed by the increasingly fruitless search I found myself on, I posted an Instagram story asking for advice on where to find decent maternity clothes. I’ve never had so many reactions to something. The responses were almost unanimous, with battle-scarred women telling me not to bother with maternity brands, that they were all a waste of time. Searching elsewhere I found Mumsnet threads titled “Maternity wear hell”, “Maternity wear argh!” and “Why are maternity clothes so ugly?”. I gave up.

I did receive some useful information, which I will pass on to people in a similar situation. H&M is good for non-expensive basics. M&S make lovely nursing bras (of course they do). Try sizing up in the clothes you normally wear and like (a great solution – my hero outfit was Lucy & Yak dungarees in the size above). It also helps to have a sweet mother-in-law who buys you a coat that you can continue to wear when you go for a walk with your winter baby.

But generally speaking, the women who messaged me did so with a tone of stoic resignation. You will live in baggy sweaters and leggings, they said. Which I’m perfectly content with, unless I ever want to leave my couch, attend a social function, or, heaven forbid, participate in a professional assignment. I was panicking about the day I had to do a performing event and, despite hours of searching, couldn’t find an outfit I felt good or confident in. What should I wear to next week’s Christmas party at work? Is it even worth considering? When I put on the oversized Princess Diana-esque sheepskin sweater I bought during the summer sale, people might think I’ve come as Santa Claus.

Clearly, nature is nature: during pregnancy our bodies change quickly, and most of us don’t want to buy clothes that will only fit us for a few months. It’s a logistical conundrum and one of the reasons why maternity wear rental companies have sprung up in recent years. But these may not necessarily solve the fundamental problem: a complete shortage of maternity clothes you might actually want to wear.

And it’s not just the clothes that are the problem, it’s also what’s underneath. I discovered that Renue, a sustainable underwear brand, makes a brilliant, comfortable maternity set (including special belly shorts that feel like a hug for your bump). The company was founded by women who wanted to fill a gap after struggling to find comfortable underwear during their own pregnancies. And doesn’t the fact that it was the job of busy new moms to solve this problem tell you everything you need to know?

Maybe it sounds a little weird, a little funny, to worry about dresses when I’m so happy that my beautiful bundle of joy is on the way. (Which, by the way, will look way cooler than me – there seems to be no shortage of nice clothes for babies.) But women don’t want to disappear off the face of the earth and swim around in leggings just because they’re pregnant; they still want to be part of the world. They still want to look nice!

And perhaps more these days than ever. It’s a time when our bodies start to feel like strangers to us in so many ways; when, whether we like it or not, they start making statements on our behalf that are received by society in ways we cannot control. I’ve realized that my loss of ownership isn’t due to Margot Robbie invading my Instagram feed. No: my real pregnancy enemy is the dreaded maternity wardrobe.