Feet First

I used to have tiny feet. They were size 3, and looked like little mouse paws. They weren't much bigger than Lily's. I liked them: they were feminine and dainty, even if they were so small I frequently fell over.

Then I put on five stone during pregnancy, and my feet grew too. They swelled up and morphed into giant hippo feet, till I could no longer get into any of my shoes and had to wear flip-flops everywhere.

"It's just water retention," friends and midwives reassured me. "They'll go back to their original size after you give birth."

Relieved, I plodded around in the flip-flops, certain they were only temporary. After giving birth, I waited for my feet to shrink, gazing hopefully at the swollen arches and bulbous toes. But they didn't.

When, two months after the birth, I was invited to a party on a rainy day, I knew flip-flops weren't appropriate. My feet were approximately twice the size of all my old shoes, so I went out to buy some new ones.

I reached the shop and found a pair of suitable shoes. "Would you like me to get those for you in your size?" the shop assistant asked.

"That'd be great," I replied. But what on earth was my size? "I'll try a size four," I said hopefully.

The fours came. I couldn't even get the tops of my feet into them.

"A size five?" I guessed.

The fives came. This time I could wedge the tops of my feet in, but my heels wouldn't fit inside.

"Sorry, I think I need a six," I apologised.

When the sixes came, I could just about get them on, but they were too tight.

And so, from a lifelong starting point of size three, I ended up taking a size seven. "How is that even possible?!" I hear you ask. (You may not be asking this at all. You may be thinking, "When is this woman going to stop banging on about her feet?!" (Not for a while yet, sorry.))

As I'm only five foot two, having huge feet felt all masculine and wrong. I tried to console myself with the thought "Now I can buy lots of new shoes,", but my brain retorted, "Yeah, transvestite-size shoes! Maybe you should get your feet bound instead?"

I did some research, and found a site which said (from memory): "Ligaments in your feet can often stretch during pregnancy, and if they haven't shrunk two months after giving birth, your feet will never go back to their original size."

So I went out and bought two pairs of black knee-high boots, feeling like Bigfoot. They were quite stylish, but they looked long and clompy on me. Knowing I would never again fit into my old dainty little shoes, I sold them all on eBay, feeling wistful and sad.

I clomped around in the boots for a few months, and all that walking might have contributed to my losing nearly three stone. During that time, a funny thing happened: the boots started to feel a bit loose.

Last week, I had a work meeting for which I didn't think boots were appropriate, so I went out to buy some court shoes. I found some I liked, then sighed to a sales assistant, "Could I have these in size seven, please?"

The shoes arrived, and I put them on... only to realise that my feet were slipping out of the heels as I walked.

"Could I try a six?" I asked.

The size sixes were tighter, but still a bit slippy.

"Maybe I'm a five?" I guessed.

Sadly, this story isn't heading back to "and then I tried size three, and like Cinderella, they fit!"

I was indeed a size five. I'm now left with lots of surplus size seven shoes, and a reluctance to buy any more shoes, in case my feet shrink further as my body does. I have no idea why my feet are being so erratic, but found this on a pregnancy site:

"Can my shoe size change permanently? The short answer is 'yes'. There are so many changes the body undergoes during pregnancy that it becomes easy to ignore the changes in your feet. Most women’s feet grow at least a half-size during the second half of pregnancy. After childbirth, it can take up to six months for changes in your feet to reverse themselves and for your feet to return to their normal size and shape. However, foot enlargement caused by looser ligaments can be permanent, and at least 15% of women permanently need a larger shoe."

So there you have it. Still, gigantic feet or no gigantic feet, it was all worth it: