If real pregnant women did magazine covers

By now you would have seen Megan Gale’s beautiful Marie Claire cover.

Gorgeously nude, glowingly pregnant. It’s a familiar look. In fact it was 23 years ago when Demi Moore became the first to grace a cover knocked up and naked. Back then the Vanity Fair cover was subversive because no one had been “brave” enough to show us a preggy belly like that, and, shock horror, been hot at the same time.

Since then, the list of ladies who have joined that prestigious club is long. Supermodels Crawford, Schiffer and Kerr. Pop stars Spears, Simpson and Carey. Oh and don’t forget Aguilera in a strategically placed bolero jacket that made her look like she’d fled a burning house and forgotten her pants and top.

And now Gale. While it’s a well-trodden path and not exactly original, I love that seeing such an image on a major fashion glossy is commonplace now. In 1991, some retailers refused to sell the Demi Moore mag unless it was in a brown paper bag. In 2014, I feel like I’ve seen Gale’s blossoming birthday suit more than I’ve seen my own, and I think that’s great. Props to Meegs, because Lord knows I couldn’t do it.

When I was pregnant I would no sooner have shared my straining spawning stomach with the world, than published photos of the act of conception. In the entire 9 months, there was not one moment where I felt beautiful. I felt itchy and irritable and stretched and gassy and hiccupy and nauseous and hungry and full all at the same time.

In fact, there are very few photos of me while pregnant, which, now that my daughter is old enough to want to see herself in my tummy, I kind of regret. But it just wasn’t in me to pose, looking wistfully down as I cradle my darling bump, mainly because my swollen, aching boobs were so big I couldn’t see past them.

I celebrate all women in their fertile glory, and I absolutely believe the pregnant form is the very definition of female beauty. But I would like to suggest an alternative front cover.

It’s more mother-to-be as I knew it. Hungry and standing at the fridge. Subversive, it ain’t. Inspirational? Far from it. But would it sell? You bet. For Take 5 Magazine.