The color of my toenail polish has become of utmost importance. It started when I was pregnant. 

At 29 weeks I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes.  Luckily, it was controlled by diet.  Tragically, it was controlled by diet. 

When you are housing a fetus your body is not your own. You become limited in so many ways; when it’s your first child it can be especially confusing and life altering.  I can see why many women gain so much weight: what else are we allowed to do but blindly follow our every food craving (unless it’s sushi, pasteurized cheese, deli meats….)? It’s impossible to fulfill any of our other little naughty desires, right?

At 27 weeks I had not gained a terrible amount of weight. I definitely indulged, but not too much.  When I did, it was usually Pad Thai or ice cream (sometimes together).  But eventually I could feel the baby get bigger. He wanted more food, more bad, greasy, delicious foods… until the GD.  The last vice I had left, my ability to eat mass quantities of Haagen Dazs and beef chow fun, was taken away; or at least it felt that way.  I was on a strict diet for the next 11 weeks. 

Believe it or not, the color choice of my weekly pedicure began to feel like the only thing I had control over.

Before my GD I only wore Essie’s Bordeaux or Fine Red Wine.  I love red, but since I have very small, ugly, bitten, fingernails, red only looks nice on my toes, and that’s where I used to wear it…all the time… for every pedicure.  Add to that the fact my “alabaster” skin (that’s what my mom tried to call it when I was growing up – thanks, mom, but you can call it what all the other kids did… paste) cannot pull off many different shades, so red it was!

Now, suddenly, I would take 20 minutes at each pedicure selecting a color, always striving for a total contrast from the previous week.  In the end, the pedicurist herself would always break a tie between two or three (or six) colors.  Ironically, she began to love choosing for me, so I guess it was good for both of us. 

Of course, once that fetus became an actual baby, the small amount of control I had left disappeared entirely. Now Man picks the color.