Beyoncé loves her some heels. In the days leading up to the birth of her baby, Blue Ivy, Queen B was spotted around New York with her hubby, Jay-Z, and her stilettos. People magazine's Most Beautiful Woman has opened up about wanting to stay as glam as possible, right up until she went into labor.

"I didn't feel that I looked beautiful during birth — but who does? After being pumped with all those fluids and gaining so much weight, with my swollen lips and cheeks, I barely recognized myself," she said in the issue hitting newsstands Friday, Pressparty.com reports. "I tried my best to roller-set my hair and I wore my [lip] gloss when I arrived at the hospital."

But all of that hard work went out the window once the really hard work of having the baby kicked in. "I committed to the end and wore my kitten heels. It makes me laugh thinking about it," she recalled. "But after many hours of labor, I didn't care how I looked. It was all about the miracle that God gave me — the opportunity to deliver a human being."

Beyoncé may not have felt hot in the hospital, but fans were certainly surprised by how hot she looked for her first post-baby appearance, hitting the New York party scene to celebrate Jay-Z's Carnegie Hall shows in February, weeks after giving birth. The singer herself was surprised by how quickly she managed to look so good.

"I'm proud that my waist came back so fast. ... I had to get my tone back. I'm definitely softer," she said. "But I feel my body bouncing back. Whatever was tight and muscular, like my legs, I'm seeing it come back. You just have to work at it."

Beyoncé will return to the stage next month for several shows in Atlantic City. She's also reportedly working on new music to follow up 2011's 4.

Copyright : MTV.com