The magazines and websites all portray a world where maternity clothes are available everywhere, in perfect sizes and in fashionable styles. The truth however is if you’re on any kind of budget finding adequate maternity clothes is hard work.

Just because your partner is pregnant and starting to show doesn’t mean she has lost the desire to look attractive. With Fiona’s clothes starting to struggle to accommodate the ever expanding bulge we decided it was time to invest in some maternity clothes to carry her through to the birth.

Fiona works as a group secretary in a University and likes to dress smartly whenever she leaves the house. Therefore we made a list of what she would need that included a couple of dresses, some jeans, several smock style tops, t-shirts, trousers, blouses, jumpers (it was winter after all), pyjamas and maybe a coat.

Leeds is a big city with a huge number of clothes shops many of which advertise a maternity range on the Internet at least. We visited them all, Dorothy Perkins, New Look, Debenhams, H & M, George (by ASDA), Marks and Spencers and on and on. Most had no maternity section, the rest had a single rail. Even Debenhams (a provider of a lot of our pre-pregnancy clothes) failed to impress us with its maternity selection. We did buy both of the outfits available though.

So we checked out all the specialist shops. Mothercare has a reasonably sized maternity section although sizes seemed to be a bit limited. The Pumpkin Patch has some nice stuff although 50% of it broke while Fiona was trying to get it on. Every other shop or catalogue was just plain stupidly expensive. Babies are expensive and I couldn’t help but feel that many of the online, specialist and catalogue providers of maternity clothing were trying to cash in rather than prove a helpful solution.

If anyone starts a maternity shop where the clothes aren’t 4 times more expensive than normal versions they may be onto a winner.

So I have probably painted a picture where Fiona walks around nude. Well that’s not true. We did find a pretty good solution for buying maternity clothes. Ebay. Most women only buy maternity clothes when they really need them. This means they are only used for about 4 or 5 months. Once you have had the baby they soon become redundant and collect dust.

Lots of people sell their maternity clothes after they have served their purpose. If your partner fits the profile of a seller you can (as we did) find some real bargains. I purchased a huge box of maternity clothes from a very pleasant woman with very similar tastes to Fiona. I gave Fiona them for Christmas (I’m such a skinflint) she got me a dishwasher. Everything in the box was immaculate. There were 5 pairs of jeans (one of which were over £100 new), many tops, jumpers, skirts, formal trousers, a pair of pyjamas and even an unworn tankini (still unworn). How much did I pay you ask? £90 including delivery. Saved us a small fortune.

The problem now is that at 38 weeks Fiona fits in a grand total of 3 outfits, one of which has to be held closed by a hair band stretched to the limit

Are we going to buy anymore clothes prior to Spuds arrival? Hopefully not but if we do have to we’re not going to spend more than a few pounds. Oh and no, we won’t be selling on our maternity clothes on Ebay, Fiona has knackered them all and nobody wants a third hand tankini.