I was having a normal, healthy pregnancy. I couldn’t complain. My morning sickness was gone. I was happy to dress my new belly in maternity clothes. I was very excited to shop for the baby and all his wonderful little things. But towards my sixth month of pregnancy, something other than my chest began to swell.
My legs and feet began to increase in size and the skin pulled so tight that they would itch and ache. My doctor didn’t label it any serious condition. I wasn’t put on bed rest. He checked the swelling at my appointments. But even at the end, when I begged him, he would not induce me for swollen feet.
It started at my knees. My calves, no longer defined. Ankles, what ankles? And my feet, my poor feet. I normally wear about a size 7 and by my seventh month, the only shoes I could wear, work or otherwise, were size 9 ½ FLIP FLOPS. Even then, once home from work, there would be a “V” indentation on the tops of my feet for at least an hour. I did everything that my doctor would suggest. I elevated my feet at work. I soaked them at night. I even made visits to my neighbor’s house to soak in their hot tub in the attempt to gain some comfort. Still the tops of my feet puffed up so high that you couldn’t see my veins and my toes looked like plump little hot dogs.
My husband couldn’t even get his hand around my ankle. And he was making sacrifices. One evening we decided to take a walk. After disappearing in our bedroom closet for several minutes, he came to the living room to ask me if I had seen his running shoes. When he looked down, I was wearing them. “Can you wear another pair?” I asked him. “This is all that fits me besides my flip flops.” It was about a week after that when he came to me, his hands full with white socks. “Can you stop wearing my gym socks?! You are stretching them out!” It was sad, very sad.
My family is from the Midwest and my Mother, Aunt, and two cousins (that are more like sisters) all came into town for my baby shower. However, two days before the shower all I could do was sit on my bed and cry because I didn’t have any shoes to wear. My family announced that we would have a fun day shoe shopping and the quest for the perfect shoe (or at least one that would fit) began.
We were on our second or third store and we weren’t having any luck. I was starting to lose my excitement and hope of finding anything. I sat with a snack, while the four of them raced off in 4 different directions. We were in DSW, the shoe warehouse. If there was any place that I could find a pair of shoes, it was here. My cousin was the first to run back to me. I saw her coming, both arms behind her back. “Keep in mind, we could cut off the sparkly butterflies,” she said with enthusiasm. But one look at those hideous shoes and I was holding back tears and craving chocolate.
One by one, they kept coming back with every size 9 ½ or 10 that had open toes or any kind of stretch. In the end, we did find two pairs that were not that bad, they were the flip flops that carried me through the end of my pregnancy. And I have never been so excited to donate a piece of clothing.
Like with most things during pregnancy, the discomfort goes away and the scars fade. I still believe that I have stretch marks on the bottoms of my feet. But when I look at my son, it is a reminder to me of how incredible a woman’s body is and the miracle of the life it grows.