Post-Pregnancy Feet and other Random Things

So, in addition to my hair falling out and then growing back in - which are just starting to look like short bangs and not sticking up anymore - my feet grew.  A whole freaking size up.  I went from a size 6.5 to a 7.5.  And now I have to get a bunch of new shoes cuz my old shoes don't fit anymore.  What saddens me is that I had just gotten this really cool pair of silvery Cole Haan open toed shoes right before I got preggers and now they don't fit anymore and I've never had the chance to wear them!!  They've become my sister's birthday gift.  *sobs*

My mom was elated that my feet grew so I had to buy new shoes..and give her my old shoes. She says her feet grew too so she can fit a size 6.5 now which was my size - pre-pregnancy.  At first she thought I had diabetes when I said my feet grew so she kept on poking her finger on my foot to see if it was just swollen but it wasn't.  I kept on telling her that after some pregnancies, feet grow but she just chalked up my new foot size to my being fat.  Yay. 

I did some research and it's not just the weight gain from the pregnancy.  It's a hormone called relaxin:

I think my feet have grown. Is this possible? (Source)


Expert Answers


Jane Andersen, podiatrist


Yes. As you're discovering, your belly isn't the only thing that gets bigger during pregnancy! This is partly due to pregnancy weight gain and swelling from the extra fluid your body retains while you're pregnant (called edema). To ease the swelling, soak your feet in cool water and prop them up as often as you can.

But there's another reason that feet seem to grow during pregnancy. The aptly named pregnancy hormone relaxin, which loosens the joints around your pelvis so your baby can make his way down the birth canal, also loosens the ligaments in your feet, causing the foot bones to spread. Your foot bones aren't actually growing — it's just that the ligaments that hold these 26 bones together aren't as tight as they were.

You may notice your shoes getting a little tight as early as the second trimester, and they may continue to increase in size until late in pregnancy. While the foot swelling generally subsides within a month after delivery, any foot spreading caused by looser ligaments is permanent. I estimate that half the moms out there wear shoes a half or a whole size bigger than they wore before having babies.

The bright side, if there is one, is that you get to buy new shoes! Buy a few pairs of comfortable, roomy shoes to wear during your pregnancy, but be aware that you may have to go back for more once the swelling settles down and your shoe size stabilizes about a month after delivery. Whatever you do, don't try to make do with your old shoes! Wearing tight shoes can aggravate bunions and cause a host of painful foot problems, ranging from ingrown toenails to corns and calluses.

Finally, since feet tend to grow with each pregnancy, you may want to hold off on those pricey Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks until you're finished having babies.

Ugh.  I guess I should be happy my fingers weren't affected.  I still fit my wedding and my e-ring!

My colleague recently told me about Skechers Shape-Ups. They're like MBTs but run a little cheaper around $100-110.  I thought the price was a little steep considering what a cheapo I am these days.  A hundred buckaroos for sneakers??  I don't have time to work out or go to the gym anymore now I have a tiny tot that takes up all of my time when I'm not at work.  Especially since he's teething these days.  His fourth tooth (the top right one) is coming in and it's especially painful since he's especially fussy these days.

I bought my first pair of Skechers Shape-ups via Amazon at a whopping $90 at a size 7 but they delivered the wrong color to me and the size didn't fit either so I returned it.  The Slickdeals alerted me to a new deal on Woman Within - if you bought 2 items, the 2nd item (the more expensive item) would be at a 50% discount! Woweee!!  So I got onto that deal and got my new Skechers for only $55, instead of a freaking $100!  I just received them and tried them on yesterday and wore them to work this morning.  It's like walking in moon shoes and you have to get used to the rocking.  But my calves actually felt a little tired today when I got into work!  Just standing in those require you to use your muscles just to stay balanced.  So we'll see if these work in any way.  I'm going to walk around everywhere during my lunch hour especially since it's nice and sunny today.

On baby news, Carey slept his first full night yesterday allowing me to get continuous sleep! I did wake up several times at night just to check on him via the monitor and he was sleeping soundly  We were thinking to give him a little Tylenol last night too because he seemed to be in so much pain but in the end, he passed out soundly.  It's makes a huge difference to get a night of continuous sleep.  I'm still tired but at least I feel somewhat refreshed. 

My baby is so smart these days.  He tells me he's hungry or thirsty by making these lip smacking sounds. It's so freaking adorable.  And he doesn't make that icky face anymore when he eats his puffs - whether it's Happy Bellies Organic Puffs or the Gerber Graduates Puffs.  I got the latter at my sister's recommendation since that's what her kids loved to snack on.  They have much more flavor than the Happy Bellies Organic Puffs.  I'm not sure which one Carey prefers but he's happily munching on all 3 kinds - Happy Bellies, Gerber Graduates or even plain Cheerios!  And I started him on water in his sippy cup.  He has a little problem using some sippy cups but he's working on it.

He started rocking on all 4s and he'll be crawling in no time. Actually he is getting somewhere, kinda, but I can't really call it crawling.  More like stretching and shimmying. Hehehe.  I definitely think that he'll be full-fledged crawling by Easter!

Weekend from Hell

Ugh, what a crappy assed weekend.  I feel like I need a vacation from the crappy assed weekend we just had.  On top of it all, it was Daylight Savings and we lost an hour! Boooooo.

We were planning this past weekend to go up to Boston since we both took off on Friday for Carey's 9-month well appointment.  But plans fell through and we didn't end up going, which might have been a good thing considering the crappy weather we all got.

Carey's 9-Month Well Check-Up

His stats:

Head:  45 cm (my baby has a big head so it's hard to put shirts on and pull shirts off.  Forget turtlenecks!)
Length:  27.25 inches
Weight:  17.8 lbs

Wow! He's grown quite a lot.  Not quite the 25 lbs that Meanie was telling his co-workers that's how much Carey weighs now. Hah.  He's so off.  The doctor said he looks great and is doing very well. 

We asked her to check his head to see if he was ok, after his accident from last week (lunging himself out of the crib). And she said that his case was the 2nd one who had lunged out of the crib that week.  I guess it's a common thing.  So once your baby starts pulling him/herself up a little, lower the crib ASAP.  You don't want to risk anything! And might as well lower it to the max lowest possible. It's a pain in the butt to put him/her in/out of the crib but better safe than sorry.

She also mentioned that the right part of his head (the back) is a little flat.  It's not THAT noticeable and his hair will cover up the flatness but it seems that the doctors like to tell you (and freak you out) when your baby's head is flat in the back.  Now it's inevitable because they tell you to keep your baby on their back when they sleep to prevent SIDS.  But if we want (we don't), we can have Carey put on a helmet 23 hours of a 24 hour/day period to straighten that out.  I think that's pure torture and I heard it smells.  No thank you.

I'm also weaning Carey off of the Similac Neosure formula onto Similac Early Advance formula.  It tends to make him slightly more gassier but the plus side is that he poops easier and more often.  It even says on the can that the formula is made to be more similar to breast milk so the poop should be more similar to a breat-fed's baby poop. Awesome!  Hehehe.  I asked to see if I could get an alternate vitamin for him cuz I thought it constipates my baby (one of its side effects) but she told me to change up his diet.  He eats pureed prunes every day so that's good.  We also need to add more fiber to his diet or we can put a little Benefiber in his food and that should help.  And he can eat meat and table food now.

I got some organic chicken breast over the weekend to make for him but Meanie's mom brought up a good point and she said to start making his baby food with some chicken stock so he can get used to the taste before he graduates to real chcken.  So I made a new batch of butternut squash puree with chcken stock.  It's quite good! I want to eat it all! Hahah.

Also I noticed if you make pureed prunes at home, try throwing in a pear as well (steam all first).  It makes the consistency a little more smoother than with a regular apple. 

Why It was the Weekend from Hell:

We were having crappy assed weather since Friday.  Heavy rains and strong winds.  Could you imagine if it were all snow?  We'd be totally snowed in with no way of getting out. Of course when I was going to enjoy my 3 day weekend with my hubby and son, the weather literally takes a dump on us. 

I could hear the winds howling on Friday night and the garbage cans being blown onto the street and stuff.  Freakiness.

Saturday, it rained the whole freaking day.  I have a running brook right behind my back yard.  When it rains/snows alot, it tends to swell alot and triple in size.  When I woke up on Saturday, it wasn't that frightening yet.  Later in the day, it looked like a river with high waves. Scariness.  We had near power outages all day with the power flickering but then it would come back on.  Meanie was saying soon we'll have a full blown out power outage.  I was hoping he was wrong.

Around 8pm, we heard a succession of big booms.  We peered outside and saw something burning a weird purplish color. It wasn't fire but it definitely wasn't a good thing.  I tried to get it on video but wasn't quick enuf.  And during the explosions, our power was flickering on and off but it kept on.  And then 2 hours, bam, no power.  *sigh* Luckily the baby was sleeping so I didn't have to stumble around with him in my arms.  I was prepping for a power outage so I had my flashlights ready - flashlights that supposedly don't run out of battery!  *crosses fingers*

I don't really care about the power outage with the lack of electronics and the fridge full of food. My main worry is the pump in the basement - that runs on electricity!  We have a pump down there to ensure that the basement doesn't flood and when the power goes off for that long of a period and if it's rainly profusely like it did all weekend, we are guaranteed to have a flooded basement.  There was about 3 inches Saturday night but by Sunday morning, it was about 6 inches.  It was high enuf to dislodge some boxes in the basement.  Our Guitar Hero guitars are totally waterlogged and most likely don't work anymore.

Our power/heat didn't come back till around 11:30am on Sunday morning.  That's like 13 hours of no electricity and no heat.  I didn't know we had hot water during all that time so we didn't shower and we were feeling pretty disgusting by Sunday morning. But I had a dilemma, I couldn't wash my hair anyway because how in the world am I going to dry it in a freezing house?  Ughhhh.

Since it was freezing, all 3 of us slept together. Hehe.  And I had to warm up Carey's bottles the old-fashioned way - by boiling some water and then dunking his bottle into it to warm it up.  Luckily we don't have electric stoves!  If so, we would have been doomed doomed doomed!!  Carey woke up in the middle of the night for his feeding because we didn't wake him up at midnight (his usual feeding) because there was no power. We were hoping by the time he woke in the middle of the night (or hoping he would sleep thru the night), that the power would be back on but nope, it didn't happen.  He had a look of WTF on his face and was like why the heck is there no light?  Would have taken a pic but not enuf light.  Hah.

And then there was the worry that there was an electric current in the stagnant water in the basement.  We had to flip the switch for the pump to get it running so Meanie put on my Sorel rubber boots (more like shoved his feet in it) and put on rubber gloves and went downstairs to switch the strip on, several times.  Ugh.  All Sunday we spent going thru the boxes - mainly my boxes full of mementos - old pictures, and some sentimental stuff which can never be replaced.  But nothing worth crying over.

So we finally finish doing all the yucky basement stuff and the laundry and everything till around 5pm Sunday.  I go to take a much needed shower - only to find that there was NO HOT WATER. *cue frustrated screams*  So after a few hours, Meanie finally gets the water heater working till around 7pm.  Apparently the flame area was wet from the flooding so with the help of some paper towels and a hair dryer, he was able to get it to work, finally.  I was worried I had to go into work feeling all disgusting and smelly. 

The shower I finally took was probably the best ever!

But yeah, that was my wonderful weekend.  I need a vacation from it.  Blegh.

Happy Bellies Organic Banana Puffs

Yesterday, we tried giving Carey some organic puffs, banana flavor ones.  My mom tried giving him Cheerios last week and she said that Carey looked like he was going to throw up while he was eating it.  I guess nothing compares to his milk or mom's milk, huh?  Whenever Carey tries eating something new, he has this peculiar face - like he ate the nastiest thing ever or something along that line.  I remember when I was trying to breast feed him in the hospital, he would have that very same face every time I tried to put him on.  I thought it was the funniest thing and then started thinking, omg, maybe I taste bad (only after not showering for a couple days, lol).  But it turns out that Carey has that face all the time whenever he tries something new.

We went to a baby shower over the weekend and the baby closest to Carey's adjusted age was already drinking from a sippy cup and eating puffs with no problem!  Age is confusing for a preemie.  Even though Carey has been out of the womb for a little over 9 months, his adjusted age is about 7.5 months but Carey was pretty gargantuan in size compared to the other babies.  I'll have to see what's up with his growth on Friday when Carey gets his 9-month well appointment.  Last time during his 6th month appointment, he was only like 10th percentile compared to other babies his age (not adjusted).  He's huge and heavy now!

So yep, I gave him a puff yesterday and accordingly to the Amazon reviews, kids love it!  I think it tastes better than a Cheerio but it's not much different.  It doesn't really melt in my mouth like they said it would but I guess it melts more than an actual Cheerio.  Carey looked like he was going to puke when I gave him a puff.  I couldn't stop laffing!  I don't have any pictures of him cuz I was laffing too much but Meanie took some video.  What's even funnier is that after he's eaten his puff, he'll open his mouth like a hungry baby chick so I can shove more in.  And when I do, he'll make that puke face again as he's trying to eat it.  LOL

I think the main reason why my baby got so big over the last 3 months is because of his formula.  Carey was only 3 lbs and 14 oz when he was born and he was PUNY.  He didn't even fit into preemie clothing cuz he was so tiny.  He was in the NICU for 2 weeks and they put him on Similac Neosure formula, which is what I still use now.  They say you should use this formula till your baby is 9 months old (which is Carey's age) so I'm wondering if I need to switch formulas now that he seems to be all caught up.

Now I have to teach him how to use a sippy cup.  I tried one time and told him to watch me as I sucked prune juice (ew) out of his sippy cup.  He didn't quite get it.  It's also more difficult to teach him because he only likes to drink milk.  He hates water and he hates juice.  Only milk!  He's just like his dad.  Meanie said when he was young, he went through like 3 bags of milk (the milk is sold in bags in Canada!!; not in cartons or gallons) per week.  I have a feeling I'll be going thru a lot of milk when Carey starts drinking cow milk.  Thank goodness for Costco!  = )

Sleep Deprived

I need a sleepcation.  My baby woke up at 5am screaming bloody murder and wouldn't go back to sleep after that.  I think he had a really disturbing nightmare and he just couldn't sleep after that.  I tried comforting him by holding him but nothing helped.  Every time I put him back in the crib, he'd start screaming as if someone was trying to kill him.  =(  So we brought him to the bed with us.  I don't want to make co-sleeping a habit but if it's the only way I'll get sleep, I'll do it.  He slept for maybe half an hour to 45 minutes and after that, he just started making this noise (think something like the horror lady from "The Grudge") and started poking me. Yes, my baby pokes me when I'm sleeping.  Wahhhhh....

Me = one unhappy exhausted momma. 

I can only drink one cup of coffee max per day or else I get really bad shakes and feels like I'm getting a heart attack since my heart palpitations are so rapid on caffeine.  Blegh.

I really hate this post-pregnancy hair issue.  Approximately 3 months after you give birth, all the hair you had while you were pregnant starts to fall out.  I would see softball sized hairballs after I took showers.  It was really disturbing.  Luckily I have a lot of hair to begin with so I didn't end up bald but my hair got really really thin.  And then after that, your hair starts growing back.  Baby hairs galore.  Mine grow back slowly and they stick straight up. So the hair at the front of my head (the bang area) sticks straight up.  You know, like these birds:

Now my baby hairs are half grown out so some are sticking up, some are sticking left, right, down, or just against the way how my hair is growing.  So annoying.  Luckily I found a stick of hair wax in my medicine cabinet and applied it.  My hairs seem to be behaving for now but who knows what'll happen at the end of the work day.

*Sigh*  The stuff mothers have to go thru for their children....*shakes head*  My sister was lucky.  She didn't have this hair problem after both her pregnancies. 

Anyways, here are some more product reviews.

Carey got this for his Christmas present from his Aunt Jenny, Uncle John and the kiddies:

Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo

I think Meanie and I were excited more than he was.  This was the present we were waiting for.  This thing is a God send if you want to save your arms.  At a certain age - like around 6 months or so, your baby is going to want to jump alot.  All..the..freaking..time.  Usually we hold him under the armpits and he starts jumping no matter where he is.  On the bed, on the floor, on the couch, on your gut..etc etc.  But when you want ur hands free, you just plunk him into this and he jumps like crazy.

When I first put Carey in it, his feet didn't even reach the floor so he just kinda hung there.  I don't think he even knew that he could jump in it.  I even bounced him by myself for him to get a clue.  He didn't figure out it gave him the ability to jump until when his dad was trying to take him out.  So Carey was trying to get away from his dad and started jumping to get away.  But once he figured out he can jump in the thing, that's what he exactly did.  I have several videos of him.  It's totally hilarious when he screams at the top of his lungs and starts jumping.  He also likes to jump to music.  That's my son! :-)

There are 2 music settings - one that plays continuous music or the other is that music will play whenever he starts jumping.  There are also toys on the side that will entertain him and a bird and a gecko hanging from up high which Carey likes to stare at while jumping.  The only bad thing is that the seat is a little tight so putting your baby in is slightly difficult and that it takes a lot of room.  But I definitely recommend it!

When my sister had her kids, she didn't have a jumperoo (I'm sure she regretted it because she got Carey one, lol). But she had the Evenflo exersaucer, several of them. LOL One for home, one for maternal grandparents' home and the other for paternal grandparents' home. I have 2 now (hand me downs) but it's a great contraption to put your kid into when he starts holding up his head. Mine are pretty outdated but the ones on Amazon look really cool!

The one I have is similar to this one.

But the other ones look so fun:

OR there's a 3 in one:

Wow!  The EvenFlo ExerSaucer Triple Fun.

I'm really envious of the babies nowadays.  I didn't have cool toys like that when I was a baby.  And the diapers are so awesome too.  I remember leaky, damp and itchy diapers from way back.  Ugh.

My blog is too long.  I'll do toiletries next like shampoo, baby wash, etc etc. eventually.