Last summer, the incredibly inspiring Yoko Shimada invited me to be involved in the launch of Mitera Collection, a collection of beautiful, functional and stylish dresses for mothers and mothers-to-be…

The truth is: finding lovely clothes to wear when preggers or breastfeeding is hard and stressful. Most maternity brands suck. I’m not wearing something in clownish red or purple for the first time in my life just because I’m knocked up, I’m absolutely not going to start wearing prints that will make me look even MORE like a sofa, and I’m sure as hell not wearing a tight wrap dress when I’m 50 pounds heavier with boobs like giant melons and a stomach that precedes me around corners by several seconds. It’s just not going to happen. (Even talking about pregnancy clothing choices makes me crabby. Can you tell?)

But I’m also not one of those women who says ‘oh, I just bought my normal clothes in one size bigger and it was fine!’ When I hear someone say that, I immediately assume they are lying. I am a moose when I’m pregnant. It’s just the way it is.

As for after the baby is born… the choice is even worse. I loathe those silly breastfeeding tops with the weird folds that you’re supposed to wrench your nipples through, I hate silly floaty empire dresses that make me look like Queen Victoria dressed as Miss Havisham, and I really don’t want anything that hugs my tummy and emphasizes my baby flab in the first months after the baby is born. During pregnancy and breastfeeding with Ned, I relied heavily on sweatpants from H&M and white men’s shirts and cardigans from Uniqlo. But I never felt stylish. Ever.

I wish Mitera had launched a year ago, because it really is the answer.

The dresses are truly beautifully made. There are careful, flat little zips so you can whip your boobs out if you need to, or even pump. The waists go out and in, according to what stage of pregnancy or post-pregnancy you’re at. And they make you feel great. These photos were taken last summer when Ned was about seven months old, and I still had a little post-baby bulge, but the dress minimizes the hell out of it. (When I look at these photos I think 1. Ned is SO CUTE! and 2. Thank God I just cut seven inches off my hair, because that is some post-pregnancy baldy scraggly hair right there. Why didn’t someone TELL ME? But the point isn’t my hair, or Ned, the point is THE DRESS.)

Anyway, the brand was launched THIS WEEK! So if you’re preggers or breastfeeding and just want a knockout dress that you can wear every day, to work events and weddings and everything in between, and always look and feel amazing, look no further. I loved the dress I wore, and I’m also obsessed with this one and this one.

By the way, I’m not being paid to say this stuff, I really just wanted to share the brand with you. I love Yoko. Her background is in global public health, and she’s truly passionate about improving global maternal and child healthcare. With every dress sold, Mitera donates money and time to their partner, D-Rev, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing life-changing healthcare technology to people around the world living on less than $4 a day. D-Rev was founded by a wonderful woman called Krista Donaldson, a Stanford PhD engineer and mother of two.

And the dresses are genuinely gorgeous. I swear I might get knocked up again just so I can wear them for the duration of my pregnancy. (Kidding. Two is enough.) (For now.) (That sound is Fox screaming.) (No, really, if I even say it as a joke he goes into a flop sweat.)

We tried to get Errol to take some photos, by the way, but he decided he’s camera-shy last summer. In most of my photos of him, he’s holding up a hand to the camera, like a starlet running from paparazzi.

EDIT – someone just asked via email, and: those are the sequined Converses I wore to our wedding, I bought them on Ebay so I don’t think they’re officially a thing but you can probably hunt them down, if that’s your bag. And the sunglasses are these ones. And the lipstick… urgh, I can’t remember. Probably this one.