If you ask a woman from our mother's generation they will tell you that we should consider ourselves lucky because when they were pregnant - there really were NO maternity stores in or around Toronto offering stylish fashion for pregnant women. Period. Apparently we should consider ourselves lucky that we can now find a handful of pregnancy shops carrying stylish maternity and sometimes cute nursing wear within the 4 corners of the GTA. Shopping for maternity clothing in Canada online allows for a few more options and for some buying over the internet is really their only viable option (think Fort McMurray). Most maternity and nursing boutiques (Luna included) have liberal refund policies for online shoppers considering the challenges of buying without trying and especially with a new body to account for! Despite this progress the simple fact of the matter is that many women will try to get by with good enough during pregnancy and hesitate to spend money on 'clothes just for a few months'. Otherwise known as 'slumming it'. At Luna we are against disposable wardrobes - often joking that your friends will have to buy their own clothes when pregnant - 99% of our styles look fabulous during pregnancy and after baby is born. It is worth repeating - buying cheap maternity clothes is the way to waste money - not save it. If I added up all the cheap clothing I bought during my two pregnancies, I could have bought a very nice wardrobe in which I would have felt amazing and definitely continued to wear and enjoy. Instead I bought clothes in sizes that were two sizes bigger (never to fit again) and styles that were not inexpensive but cheap and fell apart in the wash. Live and learn - the best way to fight the frump is to select quality maternity styles that will grow and shrink with you and that will integrate back into your regular wardrobe once your baby making days are done. And in the process you get to support locally owned businesses. Hooray!