Pregnancy a very bumpy journey in the fashion stakes

Too many women have pressure put on them about their body shapes. Photo/AP

Self-esteem is something we all need and many of us lack. Where we get it from varies from person to person. Some get it from a pat on the back from the boss, others from volunteering and helping others, a few get it from fast cars and other phallic symbols, we all get it from being appreciated and valued by the people we respect and care about.

If you are a woman, it is also a fair assumption to say you derive at least a portion of it from the way you look.

I have always been in the fortunate position of being born with a fast metabolism to compliment my languid attitude to exercise and, as a result, I have taken for granted a socially acceptable size 10 figure that has remained mostly unchanged since I was 20.

Then along came pregnancy. Which is just totally awesome. Not.

I know I ought to be publicly waving the flag for the wonderful glow that comes over a woman in the full flush of creating new life, but let's be honest here: I am currently host to a lovely little parasite that is brazenly taking anything and everything it likes from me at my expense and, lately, is getting big and boisterous and making me look like I didn't just eat too many pies, but went back to monster the dessert table.

I know I should say "I look pregnant", but to me, I just look fat. Which, in itself, has given me an incredible (and thankfully temporary) insight into what it must feel like for many women who face a lifelong battle with their weight.

In the early stages of my bump, I tried to hide it with baggy clothes and carefully draped scarves. Then I got home from work one day and happened to see myself in profile instead of front on, and realised that for the past eight hours while lurching about in front of 100 people at a wedding I had been doing so as a fat person.

I was mortified.

A couple of months on from that, I have a bona fide baby bump, and have learned that the best way to address the problem of my changing body shape is to embrace it, with fitting clothes that tip the scales in favour of "baby" over "pies".

But finding those clothes was a frustrating process that saw me suddenly excommunicated from every fashionable store I'd ever frequented and skulking around instead in the back corners of cut-price department stores for the inevitable lone rack of "maternity wear" that had clearly been designed by an ardent misogynist.

Being fat is, it turns out, a lonely and deeply depressing condition. Who knew? Realistically, given all the stats we read about obesity these days, probably lots of people.

Last week I got a rare insight into Maori culture and came out the better for it, and I now can add to that a new and far more sympathetic view on the struggle faced by so many women trying to live with an imperfect figure in a world that throws perfection in front of us on every magazine cover and in every store window as though being beautiful and slim is a piece of cake.

It makes me understand why one might need two pieces of cake just to cope.

I am ashamed to say I am fixated on the idea of "getting my body back" after the baby, but perhaps I should be more ashamed I live in a world where so much social pressure is put on me, other new mums and women to fit into the (way too tiny) box of perceived physical perfection.