I am pregnant. I generally enjoy this experience despite its downsides such as instantaeneously throwing up when your other half brings fish and chips home as a special treat (That upset me, I love fish and chips). I do however have one major bugbear – the clothes.

I don’t know why, but through both of my pregnancies I have had the same issue: Designers seem to think that pregnant women lose all sense of both colour and fashion as soon as they start getting fat.

I appreciate that baby curves resrict the styles that can be worn flatteringly and no matter what you try, yes, your bump looks big in that, but this doesn’t explain why everything seems to be in shades of black, grey, mushroom and other similarly depressing colours. And it’s frumpy. So much stuff is frumpy.

I’m in a happy place in my life and I would quite like to be in clothes that reflect this. I’m not overly fussy, I have never been one to follow every trend and fashion. I was quite happy all the way through college and university in my non-skinny jeans, a nice bright t-shirt and a hoody of some variety. So I don’t think I’m asking for much, just some pink or a pretty pattern or something. I’m sick of things that look like they’ve been fashioned out of my Gran’s bedroom curtains, or, alternatively, just borrowed from her wardrobe…

There are patterned things around, I’m not denying it, and some of them are nice enough. But they all seem to be grey. I’m fed up of grey. It might be Winter but in my eyes that’s even more reason to wear something bright – battle the storm clouds instead of join them! Anyway, it was exactly the same when I was pregnant with Tori and she was a Summer baby. That season’s colour was apparently brown with more brown on it, which is about as depressing as grey with different shades of grey on it.

This sounds like I don’t want to wear black or brown or grey ever, which isn’t true, I like all of these colours in moderation. I just dont want to wear them every day.

I’m not saying there aren’t some nice clothes out there either, there are. I have a lovely pink Tinkerbelle maternity T-shirt with sparkly bits that I found in Peacocks and I have a couple of pretty ‘going out’ tops, one blue and one black, both satin effect and very flattering considering the shape you are when wearing them. But it’s taken two pregnancies and a lot of hunting to buy three tops I really like which is hardly a great record.

I think the worst thing, though, is that almost all of these not-particularly-nice clothes that you’re not going to be wearing for more than a few months cost you a small fortune to buy. And it’s not just the tops and dresses that cost you a fortune to buy the second you become pregnant either, I almost had a heart-attack the other night when hunting online for a new coat that will do up round Bump in this hideous weather. Not over the price of the coat (which I actually really like and was, rather happily, on sale) but over the price of a single pair of ‘jeggings’ from Mothercare.

Now, I don’t know about you but I generally think jeggings look pretty rubbish on anyone older than about nine years old anyway, so the prospect of paying £32 for a pair, extra ‘bump’ section or not, actually made me squeak out loud. And not with glee.

So, what am I doing about this lack of colour through my pregnancy? Wearing several T-shirts which are just a few sizes too big for me but are nice and colourful is one tactic, but I can’t say as they make me feel overly great about my shape as they tend to just make you look fat rather than pregnant. I’m endlessly hunting for those elusive coloured and pretty maternity clothes which I just *know* exist somewhere and you never know, by the time I get round to having a third baby, maybe someone will have pointed out to the World’s fashion designers that, actually, Mum’s-to-be like wearing pretty colours. Fingers crossed, eh?