Shifting dimensions

When I was pregnant I could never figure out what size I was. I don't mean my clothing size, but my physical size. I was forever bumping into things, rolling further than I expected, or shutting doors on myself.

The door incident happened in St. Tropez. We'd been invited to the land of the ultra-glamorous by an equally glamorous friend from London who had planned a weekend of festivities to celebrate her 40th birthday. Armed with what I hoped was fitting attire (let's face it, it's tough to be pregnant and glamorous on a budget), we drove from Barcelona to St Tropez. I was very excited to see many of the friends I was missing so much from London and to have a relaxing weekend.

Any illusions of glamour evaporated on the autoroutes du sud as I asked my supremely patient partner to pull over time and again so I could use the toilet. If I didn't know my outer dimensions, I was becoming keenly acquainted with the thimble-like capacity of my bladder as it became compressed by our growing baby girl.

After nearly ten hours of travelling -- far more than the six normally required by non-pregnant people -- we arrived in St Tropez. We ate, showered and collapsed into bed. We'd recovered by the next morning and met our friends in the hotel lobby before going off to meet the birthday girl and her family at a gorgeous beach club. I thought I'd pop into the loo for a quick pee, and that's where it happened.

It seemed like a perfectly normal toilet with a full door (not one of those metal stalls) and lots of room for me and my belly. And it was. Unfortunately, in my haste to join the others and get to the beach, I forgot about my paunch and swung the door closed without thinking. As I felt the large metal door latch scrape across my midsection I thought: "This is bad". And it was; I spent the rest of the day with a large welt across my stomach that must have looked like someone had taken a red magic marker to my skin.

As my pregnancy progressed, I found myself falling off and spilling out of furniture and clothing. The summer shoes I bought especially for the pregnancy didn't have a hope of fitting me by month nine, adjustable velcro fastening notwithstanding; the chairs in a restaurant on a nearby leafy street were clearly defective -- or so I told myself as my giant thighs spilled over the chair's edges during lunch one day; and let's not forget how my partner couldn't hold my hand the week before the baby was born because my fingers had swollen so much he could only hold two at a time...

Nearly a year later I'm back to my quasi-normal size, but I miss the Rubenesque excesses of my pregnant body. And as the chances of me enjoying another pregnancy are in doubt at the minute, I wish I could go back to feel again the delicious sensations of my body working to create another person. Who knows, maybe I'll be there again one day, with a little bit of luck.