chapter 4

Gaining weight is interesting. If you're deliberately TRYING to gain, it seems that it takes a LONG time and you seem to be aware of even the least little change in your body. A belly that jiggles now with every step you take. Skirts that you can't zip up. Leggings that mysteriously split at the seams. Ah, but when you're oblivious to what's happening to you, when you don't check your mirror hourly to spot each new roll or mound of fat, when you don't rush to your scales to see how much a particularly fattening meal added to your gross tonnage, when you think your clothes are shrinking in the laundry when you're actually getting fat. THAT'S when it happens. A singular event that transforms you from the skinny girl you once were to the fat woman who gasps for a breath when climbing a flight of stairs and breaks out into a sweat when walking a block to the donut shop for "just a little something to nosh on".

That's what happened to Hilly Przbylski. About three weeks after her latest dressing down from Father Minogue, a public scolding that thoroughly embarrassed her in front of her staff, she desperately needed comforting. To be sure, Brad was there, offering a shoulder to cry on and another helping of five cheese lasagna. But now the dark moments were coming faster and they lasted longer, moments when she craved for something to make her feel all warm and fuzzy. It was then that food became her constant companion. She'd come into work already chomping down a glazed donut, with one of those coffee "milkshakes" that her bakery passed off as "just a cup of coffee". Her mid-morning snack morphed into her early morning snack which spilled over to her mid-morning snack, quickly followed by an extra large fast-food lunch catered by the ever solicitous Brad. Afternoon brought with it a snack or three followed by a fabulously fattening home-cooked meal by none other than the absolutely sympathetic Brad.

So it should have come as no surprise that Hilly's little fat cells grew and became MUCH BIGGER. She gained an astounding eighteen pounds in just under three weeks, now fast approaching the two hundred pound mark! One day at work she dropped her pen. Naturally, she bent over to pick it up. The sound of tearing fabric could be heard from the deepest part of her private office to the front door of the Nutrition Department. That was embarrassing enough. But these were once her "fat" yoga pants, her last resort. What she wore about twenty pounds ago to avoid looking like a stuffed sausage in a size ten skirt. And all she could do was sit in her chair and mope. That is until she tried to get up from that same chair and found that her fat ass was too big to let her get up!

One might have thought that was the pinnacle of a VERY bad day. After all, what ELSE could go wrong? Well, she had been feeling a bit queasy lately and her period was a couple of days late. For a lot of women this might not have been that alarming, but since her first period at age twelve Hilly had been regular as clockwork. She could almost set her clock to the onset of her "flow". So that afternoon she decided to leave work early and head home for some rest, relaxation and a home-cooked meal. But first she stopped off at the drug store to pick up a home pregnancy test.

She felt ridiculous about buying it. She and Brad had been like a couple of over-sexed bunnies in heat, making love madly and passionately and more frequently than she could have ever imagined. With NO protection whatsoever! And NOTHING!! Hilly was a nutritionist. She knew that overweight women had a hard time conceiving. And if the incident with her yoga pants told her anything it told her she was DEFINITELY a fat woman. So how could she get pregnant?

When she got home she marched into the bathroom, pulled down her pants, opened the package and pulled out the magic pregnancy stick and then let loose with a steady stream of urine. Thank God for all those "coffee milkshakes" she had been drinking! She sat on the toilet for the entire waiting period, counting down every second until it was time to get the news. Times UP!! She looked at the magic stick and gasped. "Little" Hilly Przbylski was about to become a mom!!