“Hey Robert, you sure it’s not YOU having the baby?” taking a long glance at Robert’s expanding paunch.

Robert laughed along with his co-worker. It was hard to deny, his wife’s pregnancy had been hard on the both of them. Sure, she was going through a lot, but he had a classic case of ‘sympathetic pregnancy’. His back hurt, his ankles hurt. He was always moody. And he was always eating. At least, he smiled to himself, he wasn’t eating anything weird like Wendy was. Though, as the tight waist band on his pants reminded him, he was eating at least as much.

That night he came home to Wendy sitting on the couch and crying. He noticed she was in just her bra and underwear, her maternity suit in a pile in the corner, along with an empty ice cream tub.

“Um, what’s the matter babe?” Robert ventured.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a big fat cow!” she sniffled.

“Aw, come on. You’re pregnant, you’re supposed to gain a little weight.” He could already tell that he wasn’t going to win this, but there was little else he could do.

“Tell that to Marlene! She sent me home because I’m too fat!” she snapped back at him.

Robert thought about this for a moment. Wendy worked for a sporting goods company in the marketing department. Everyone knew that in marketing, appearances did play a role. Robert knew Marlene well, in fact, he’d gone to school with her. They weren’t best of friends, mostly because Robert felt she was a little shallow. But she wasn’t shallow enough to send Wendy home because she was fat, was she? That was absurd.

Of course, Wendy HAD gained a tremendous amount of weight. She was 7 months pregnant and had gained a full 70 pounds. Robert thought back to the 115 pound cheerleader he had started dating in high school. She certainly didn’t look that way now. She was obviously pregnant, but she was also getting quite fat. She had a double chin now. Her stomach was huge, of course, and her breasts had grown at least a couple of cup sizes (not that he was complaining!). Her ass had become quite bulbous as well.

But Robert could hardly talk, through the ‘miracle’ of being a loving husband experiencing a ‘sympathetic pregnancy’, he had added 40 pounds to his formerly lithe swimmer’s frame! No one was a worse critic of himself than he was.

But surely Marlene hadn’t sent Wendy home because she was too fat. He checked his watch, he figured Marlene would be home now, and he’d give her a call and get this straightened out. He was a lawyer, after all, and if she HAD done something so foolish, he’d own her scrawny ass.

Marlene wasn’t too surprised to get Robert’s call. She quickly explained the situation. Marlene didn’t like how her suit looked when she came back from lunch. She simply wasn’t presentable for a client meeting that was scheduled. She didn’t send Wendy home, per se, but had told her she needed to change before the meeting. She was actually a little upset that Wendy hadn’t returned without offering an explanation. Robert apologised, and promised to take it up with Wendy.

He went back to his wife, he found her sitting back on the couch, devouring a bag of chips. As he lowered himself on to the couch, he opened up a bag himself (neither of them even thought twice about keeping bags of chips right at the couch!) and began the most delicate discussion of his life.

“I talked with Marlene”.

“Fuckin’ bitch. I hate her. She’s jealous, she can’t get rid of me at work, so she pulls this shit.” The half empty bag of chips flew across the room, spilling all over the suit in the corner.

“Come on, you know that’s not true. You need to calm down a little bit.”

“Calm down? CALM DOWN? Easy for you to say, you’re not a fat ball of raging hormones.” She ripped the bag of chips from his hands.

“Look!” he thundered. He leapt to his feet and pulled his shirt open, exposing his gut. “You’re not the only one who’s gained weight around here. You’re not the only one feeling sorry for themselves, you’re not the only one who is stressed out about having a baby!”

Wendy had a shocked look on her face, but she was quiet, giving Robert her full attention.

“Now,” he calmly sat back down, his opening act complete. “She just said that you needed to change your skirt. That’s no big deal. It’s not the first time you’ve spilled, or disagreed with Marlene about what you should wear to a meeting.”

“But that’s not it. That’s not it at all!” Wendy pleaded. “Look!” with a great effort she got to her feet, spilling chips everywhere. She waddled over to the corner, and bent over to retrieve her outfit from the pile. (God, her ass is gigantic, Robert couldn’t help think.)

She held up her skirt. Robert was expecting to see a ketchup stain or something. In fact a seam had torn. His heart sunk, he was pretty sure he knew where this was going.

“This suit, this was the LAST SUIT I had that fit. I have gotten so fat that I can’t even wear maternity clothes. I’m too fat to work!”

“Let’s go out, we’ll go shopping, we can get you some bigger clothes, it’s no big deal. Besides,” he drew in a big breath and flexed his still powerful abs, buried deep below his own rounded belly. The button popped off his pants and they fell down around his ankles. “You’re not the only naked tub of lard who needs some new clothes before going back to work!”