Ever since Wendy had been taken off work, their life had entered a bit of a downward spiral. She was absolutely miserable for the first week. She had been humiliated at work, and there was little Robert could do to help her out.

He would come home from work and find her on the couch, sometimes in her bra and panties, sometimes without them, their tell tale red marks still visible on her flesh. She’d be surrounded by empty chip bags, a pizza box and dirty dishes. He’d try to console her, but she’d just dismiss him. “You think I’m going to listen to a tub of lard like YOU?” But she’d apologise while he changed out of his work clothes and make dinner, enjoying his company for the evening.

After a week of feeling sorry for herself, she finally pulled it back together. She cleaned the house obsessively, had the nursery ready to the last detail, would go out shopping and kept the cupboards, fridge and freezer fully stocked. She cooked constantly, freezing meals for after the baby came, but also preparing massive feasts that left both of them stuffed and lingering on the couch for the evening.

Work was busy for Robert, he was going to take a month off after the baby came, so he was tying up lose ends, making sure all his cases would be properly taken care of. He didn’t have a lot of spare time, and found himself eating a lot more, just to give himself a bit of a breather between clients. He was looking forward to things getting back to ‘normal’.

They were also spending as much ‘quality time’ together as possible. Of course, some nights she simply couldn’t get comfortable at all, and all that would happen was a solid back massage, and perhaps a foot rub.

One night Robert just lay there, taking in Wendy’s body. She wouldn’t be like this much longer. He found himself a little sad at that thought. All along he’d been excited about the thought of her regaining her 115 pound cheerleader’s body. But over the last few months he had come to accept, even appreciate and enjoy her new roundness.

Obviously her massive breasts were a big drawing card. But her smile now had the cutest dimples, and was framed by her double chin and round cheeks. It was sexy! The silhouette of her massive belly balanced out by her wide buttocks and thick thighs. And the way she moved. It was poetic. She was slow now, her waddle had gone from ungainly to vulnerable, deliberate, almost a sexy sashay. The gentle ripples that would start at her butt and radiate up her back, down her legs, the moved in a poetic rhythm.

And then there was watching her eat. She had long abandoned her normal habits of eating just enough. Now, she loved her food. It wasn’t just fuel, it was something to be enjoyed, relished. With her heightened sense of smell she was getting a whole new experience with each bite. She didn’t eat because she was hungry, she ate because she loved to. He loved that raw joy on her face from simply biting into a Mars bar, or the total effect of a well prepared chicken dinner, or the light in her eyes if he brought home a dozen doughnuts. How could someone who loved her not be happy when she was experiencing her ultimate indulgence?

Wendy studied Robert in turn. She missed his tight buns dearly. The dough that now formed his ass, his stomach his, well, everything… it bothered her. She hated to touch it. She hated feeling it against her. She knew that he dearly loved her, and the sympathetic pregnancy was a direct manifestation of that. And it was sweet, it really was. She felt awful that he’d had to live in the same fat, awkward, painful experience that she was going through. But he loved her, and that was special.

That day she’d bought her first bathroom scale since high school. By university she had been 115 pounds for so long that she didn’t need to weigh every day. She would weigh in occasionally at the gym, but was never surprised by the results. Now, of course they were going to work hard to drop the flab they’d acquired over the last 9 months.

“Come on honey, let’s weigh in. I want to see how much I weigh before we have this baby!” she gleefully ran, well, waddled, to the bathroom. “Oooh, I’m up to 217. That’s still smaller than you are dough boy!”

“Okay,” he grinned, catching up to her. “Wow, 232. 12 pounds in a month. Almost as good as you my Swiss Miss!”

“This is our last chance. Let’s go crazy!”

“What do you mean?” Robert was a little confused by her jubilant energy.

“Let’s eat, let’s REALLY eat. I want to gain a pound a day until the baby comes! I want to be HUGE. I want to be FULL. This is the last time in my life I’ll get to eat likes this, make it count, please?”

“A pound a day? Wow. Well, sure, we can try that, if you want.”

As it turned out, the baby came a week late, in the 10 days from the start of their challenge, Wendy in fact gained 8 more pounds. She was disappointed that Robert gained a mere 6 pounds, and was mock annoyed that he used ‘work’ as an excuse.

So it was, the day her water broke and she waddled to the emergency room she was at her all time high weight of 225 pounds, and he was a hefty 238.

The delivery itself was long and arduous. The baby was quite large, 10 pounds, 15 ounces. The birth was natural though. Well, drug aided, but no c-section. Even though it took over thirty hours, the delivering doctor never felt that there was enough distress to have the invasive procedure done.

They spent a couple days in the hospital, bonding with their little boy. Wendy learned how to breast feed, and Lyndon was a hungry little one! Robert never left her bedside except to get some food for himself, or to check on Lyndon in the nursery.

When Wendy was discharged from the hospital, she was pleased to learn she was under 200 pounds! Not much though, at 195. Robert was a little shocked, but the nurses told him that was fine, the weight of the baby, amniotic fluid, not to mention how much energy she had spent delivering Lyndon, and the extra energy being used breast feeding. She was doing fine.

She was told she’d find her appetite still up, because of the breast feeding, but she would also be losing weight quickly, again, because of the breast feeding. She was happy to hear this. Robert just wished that part of the sympathetic pregnancy was being able to breast feed too. He shivered at the thought, but envied Wendy’s automatic weight loss trick.

Robert: Chapter 6