Maternity Tights (and other gripes)

Helen Ugwu - 24 Mar 15

I like being pregnant. Last time around I’d have gone so far as to say I was good at it. This time I am rather less good at it, as illustrated by the numerous ghastly afflictions from which I find myself suffering. “Glowing” I am not. I shall list them here – don’t read while you’re eating your dinner.

MATERNITY TIGHTS
What IS it with them? How hard can it be? Hosiery companies, come on! We have a big belly and we need our tights to accommodate it. We want them to sit high on the bump and we want them to stay there. I went to a wedding over Christmas and I treated myself to a proper good new pair of maternity tights. These were Wedding Fresh and Not Cheap. We had a 10 minute walk to the Tube; before we had got to the end of our street the waistband had rolled over my (then quite modest) bump, and nestled itself snugly underneath. It looked like I was carrying a Peperami under my dress. Five minutes later and the leg parts were falling down too – there is no excuse for this. By the time we reached the Tube there was ACTUAL GUSSET visible below my hemline. I felt like SUING and I had to do some serious HOIKING on the escalator! Needless to say I did not light up the dance floor that night. I couldn’t even walk about without flashing my low-slung crotch. I have given up trying to find a decent pair of Preggy Tights. I have instead taken to using a regular pair, yanking them up until they are sitting in the desired spot and using Bio Oil or similar as a sort of adhesive to keep them in place. This has worked ok up to present. But post 30 weeks, I’m not sure it’ll cut the mustard. So come on, Tights People, put your heads together and make us something that STAYS UP!

DANDRUFF
It’s been many years since a teenage me found a decent shampoo and stuck with it. I did not expect to have to revisit this problem at the grand old age of 35. It’s EMBARRASSING! And in the spirit of honesty, I confess that it is not just confined to my head. No…I don’t mean down there (well actually, who knows? I can’t see what’s going on down there anymore). I am talking All Over Body Dandruff. When I take my trousers off at night the insides are covered in a layer of dead LEG SKIN (imagine a nice sprinkling of parmesan). When I pull my jumper over my head, it is like someone has just given a snow globe a good shake in the bedroom: clouds of dead skin fly off into the air like magic dust. I’m probably giving Eve asthma! I’m like a snake: I must shed a whole entire layer of skin at least every day or two. Moisturising is futile. It merely adheres the loose skin to the limb, and together they make a sort of paste. The skin wants to be free.

VARICOSE VEINS
Need I say more? This is almost an insult too far. I’m not 80! There is something akin to the M6 traversing the inside of my left thigh. It’s horrifying. My veins are quite literally trying to break free from my body, so overloaded are they with excess baby blood. I can only hope it does the decent thing and recedes from whence it came once normal service resumes.

CONSTIPATION (versus its Equally Awful Opposite)
There is no happy medium here. Either I haven’t been for 5 days or I need to go now. Like, NOW. The latter happened on our walk home from nursery recently, and when I started taking the corners on two wheels, Eve asked why we were running. I said, quietly, “Mummy needs to do a poo, so we need to get home.” She squealed in delight, to the street, “Mummy’s done a POO!” “Mummy hasn’t DONE a poo,” I replied. “She just needs to do a poo.” “Mummy’s done a poooo,” she yelled, as school boys looked on sniggering and a reasonably hot local dad gave me a sheepish smirk. Easy for him when we weren’t all shouting about his poo. “I haven’t done a poo, I just want to do a poo,” I snapped back at Eve, not quietly. “Mummy’s done a POO in her NAPPY.” Before I knew it I was shouting at my baby, and all the world, “I HAVEN’T POOED IN MY NAPPY!”

So there you have it. Four little preggy gripes. I couldn’t think of a fifth so it can’t be that bad. Relatively speaking. Especially when exchanged for a baby in a couple of months’ time. Yes, how lucky we are.

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Helen Ugwu

Helen Ugwu is an actress (and office administrator in the City, cos it's the one that pays the bills) and mum to Eve who is 2 and a 5 month old baby boy. She is married to Ben and they all live in North London.

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