Chapter 5 - the appointment

Four months passed in this fashion - days and some evenings with the two best friends hanging out inseparably. One afternoon, Tiffany found herself sitting in the waiting room at her doctor's office. She had already gone through some post-delivery appointments a few months ago to make sure she was doing alright, but this was the first time she had any sort of check up for at least three months. She had dropped off the kids with Katelyn that morning, and was waiting patiently for her name to be called, looking up a new recipe on her phone. Katelyn was a pretty accomplished cook and baker, which she attributed to her husband's influences at his restaurant. She had made so many amazing meals and snacks for Tiffany, that eventually Tiffany found herself sitting around at home on days where the two didn't get together, her stomach gurgling and mouth watering just thinking about the absence of her afternoon cattle graze in which she loved to partake. Eventually, she started asking Katelyn for some recipes and trying a few things out for herself. She had always been a serviceable cook and baker, but now she was earnestly taking up cooking and baking as a real hobby. Her first few attempts fell quite short of Katelyn's abilities, but with time, effort, and the motivation of reproducing the flavors Katelyn had introduced her to, she had started to master several desserts and other dishes.

"TIFFANY?" the receptionist's voice called out to the mostly empty waiting room.

She shuffled to her feet, tugging her shirt down as she rose from the chair. The doctor's assistant gathered Tiffany at the door to their back offices and walked her down the hall to the small room where her check-up was to take place. As they walked, the assistant read her chart and chatted.

"So, it looks like this is your.....four month checkup post-partem? Congratulations, how's everything going with the new baby?"

"Great!" Tiffany replied in a cheerful voice and with a big smile.

The assistant led her into the room and asked her to take off her shoes which Tiffany began to do.

"Alright, so we'll just take some vitals to see where you are... I'll take your blood pressure and some other things, but first let's hop up on the scale" the assistant said with a reassuring smile.

Tiffany stepped up onto the scale, as the metal balancing end of it slammed upward in it's housing. The assistant moved some of the counter-weights forward. Then moved them forward. Then moved them forward again. She furrowed her brow, and continued the adjustments until eventually the metal bar began to drop down and balance in the middle. She knocked the smaller adjustment slider across the top, tapping it farther to the right, farther, farther, and finally settling on a number at the balance point.

"Huh." the assistant said, double checking the number against Tiffany's chart.

"It says here you delivered at... 180 pounds?" she questioned.

"Yes, that sounds correct" TIffany responded.
"....annnnd at your checkup three months ago you were down at 168?" the assistant followed on.

"Um, I think so? Maybe?" Tiffany answered. With her metabolism and habits she had never really watched or paid too much attention to her weight, in fact she didn't even own a scale. If she had to, she honestly couldn't tell the average person what she weighed on a given day or week or even month. Sure, with her first couple of kids she had gone up a couple of sizes in clothes, but that was just sort of what you could expect when becomming a mother in her opinion. She still felt fit and trim.

"Hm. Well, Tiffany I have you down as 198 pounds and 8 ounces here today..." the assistant added.

Tiffany stiffened up at the number read to her. Her mind started to race. 198 pounds? What? How was that possible? She had put on 30 pounds in just a little over three months? She was close to being 200 pounds?!? She looked down at her pudgy body. Sure her stomach was maybe a bit round, but she couldn't really remember if she was comparing it to while she was pregnant or before then. She involuntarily tugged at the bottom of her shirt which was rising up again. She was in shock. Was she really that fat? She didn't FEEL like she had put on 30 pounds... How could she have not noticed this?

"That's a fairly substantial weight gain over this period of time..." the assistant continued, reading the reaction of horror on Tiffany's face and attempting to soften the blow.

"But it's not entirely unusual - a lot of new mothers gain even more on top of their baby weight. It can happen just sitting around the house taking care of a newborn. Sometimes weight burns off while breastfeeding, sometimes it creeps on a bit. We'll see what the doctor says, but for the most part he'll probably just say not to worry and recommend that you get some exercise and try to eat some healthier foods, leafy greens, that sort of thing!" the assistant added in a cheery tone.

The assistant slipped out of the room promising that the doctor would be in shortly. Tiffany's eyes were glazed over as she stared down at the undeniably rounder figure staring back at her. She walked over to the full length mirror on the wall and lifted up her shirt. She examined herself closely. Front, then side, then back, then the front again, then the other side. She sucked in her gut, pushed it out, sucked it in and let it flop outward. She picked up her bulbous breasts and weighed them in her hands. They DID feel a bit heavier. She inspected her face closely. It was certainly rounder and less angular. There was a very definite little roll of flab forming under her jaw line which grew more pronounced as she tucked her chin downwards. She tried to make sense of it all. How had she done this to herself without noticing, and how had nobody mentioned anything to her? Certainly Chris and Katelyn must have noticed...why didn't either of them mention anything?

She glanced at her clothing. It dawned on her that she had been exclusively wearing comfortable stretchy maternity wear since she came back from the hospital, since it was way more cozy for lounging around the house and with a newborn she wasn't exactly going out anywhere special - mostly hanging out with Katelyn. She had noticed her sports bra she frequently wore while snacking on the couch felt a bit snug recently, but she thought it was just from engorged breasts due to milk production, or the bra shrinking in the wash. The only thing noticeably too small had been her shirt. Perhaps she had just been in denial this whole time - another item that shrunk in the wash? She racked her brain trying to remember clues she had missed.

Her mind doubled back to the previous thought: lazing around the house with Katelyn. Katelyn. Big, enormous, always stuffing her face Katelyn. There was no denying she had been hanging out with her bestie every other day at least, and when she thought about it most of what they did whenever they hung out was sit on the couch or at the kitchen table, gorge themselves on delicious food and talk or watch movies together while the children played. She had never really paid much mind to her friend's size - she was obviously a big woman, but the shock had been lost on Tiffany quickly when she ceased to see Katelyn as an abberation of size and proportion and rather her close, almost kindred spirit best friend. She had simply accepted the fact that Katelyn was morbidly obese. Hell, it seemed like half the people in town were morbidly obese. It had ceased to be strange and had simply become normal to see and be around. Tiffany had never placed much of an emphasis on weight or body image, since with her metabolism she had never really had to think about dieting or exercising, and wasn't instilled with the diet and exercise superiority attitude that came along with those things. The thought had crept into her head "I'm getting big like her..." the pictures of younger Katelyn progressing from piglette to enormous hog which were plastered around her kitchen and family room flashed into Tiffany's mind.