So last night, me and Shrimps daddy headed out to the cinema. I sat with my hands over my tummy enjoying the film when all of a sudden I felt something. I turned my concentration to it, thinking I’d imagined it, but there it was again, a little nudge against my hand. I decided it must be a massive bubble of gas or something, it felt so much more definite than I ever felt in my previous pregnancy, but I kept my hands there and the nudging continued! Not a fluttery feeling, not like gas bubbles popping, but like a baby kicking from the inside. It was so surreal. Every time I thought I’d grab daddy’s hand to see if he could feel it too though, the movements stopped for a bit. They’d always start up again though, and continued right up to the end of the film! Being 17weeks and 5days I wasn’t expecting to feel anything so definite for months, but I have no doubt about what I was feeling!

All I wanted to do today was sit and wait to feel Shrimp again, but no such luck, I’d already arranged to go dress shopping for the posh do I am attending in just over a week.
We set off straight after lunch, allowing me to have done my injection before we left. Might be a bit strange doing that in the toilets somewhere – I feel awkward enough taking my tablets in public!
My back has been aching for a couple of days now, an aching feeling around my lower back, either side of my spine, a pain which is made worse by walking so I wanted to make this trip as quick and successful as possible. Arriving in the city at about half one we set off on a trail around the shops. We had already partially planned which shops to try – the ones likely to be in my price range and have something relevant. We got through them quickly, mainly because the majority of them either didn’t have evening wear, or the evening wear cost around £200, at that point we exited the store as quickly as we could! In the entire day I picked up one dress that was maternity wear, it was on the sale rack and was a total coincidence it was maternity. The only shop I found a dedicated maternity section in was H&M and there was definitely no evening wear in there!
I should probably mention that I am relatively tall, 5’10”, meaning that even normally I have to check the length of maxi dresses as some are just too short. Today I found that removing the couple of inches that my bump takes up makes 99% of maxi dresses too short, and even made knee length dresses unsuitable for this event! I found Quiz dresses were the only ones that would potentially be suitable, but I wasn’t over-keen on them, so chalked them up as maybes.
Four hours later however, I was ready to give up and go back to Quiz, pick one, any one, and go home, but first we decided to give House of Fraser a go, even though the first price tag I looked at was £195 I knew they had bargains occasionally so we kept looking and finally I found a lovely Little Mistress dress which is big enough over my bump, is long enough to not look too short on me and is dressy enough for the do and best of all, it was £37.50! It was the last on the rack, the only colour combination I liked and in my size. It was like it was meant to be! I bought it as quickly as I could and left, glad that it was finally over!

  
A couple of sneaky pictures I took in the changing room – I shall hopefully get some nice ones at the event

I’d been limping around the city for about 4 hours, my back was absolute agony by this point. I even had to sit down waiting for our lift to get us, and finally sitting down in the car felt so amazing I could have just stayed there!

Now why didn’t I just buy online? Honestly, I normally do. Buying clothes online is my norm, but with an ever growing bump I needed to know it was going it fit and give me room to move and eat.
I don’t know why I couldn’t find any maternity ranges anywhere, maybe they were there but didn’t include evening wear so I didn’t notice them, but I must admit I did keep my eyes peeled for any signage and it atleast didn’t jump out at me!
I know some stores keep maternity ranges online which is fair enough, it keeps costs down not having to keep all sizes in stock in all stores, but it made actual city shopping a total nightmare! With the amount of pregnancies going up I’d have thought everywhere would have a maternity section!

Atleast I have finally got myself a dress, that’s one less thing to worry about, now for shoes and jewellery! I think I’ll be raiding my cupboards for those. Less walking!!!