Monica paced around the boardroom, her belly bumping against the back of one of the chairs surrounding the boardroom table. "Sorry!" Danny said, scooting his chair further into the table as much as he could with his own pregnant girth in the way.
"It's fine," Monica said in a distracted voice, eyes focused on the charts projected on the end of the boardroom. Stock was plummeting quickly and Yaral Industries were on the cusp of a sudden, aggressive takeover.
"You should be more careful," Penny said quietly, looking at Monica's enormous pregnant belly with concern. "At this rate, a bump like that could send you into labor."
"That's how you can go into labor early?" Jodie said, pushing away from the table and waddling over to Monica, hands on her own huge belly, nearly as big as Monica's. Jodie was wearing clothes from before she got pregnant and let her bare belly press and bump against Monica's. "It feels like I've been pregnant for-evah! I can't wait to meet my babies the sooner the better."
"Jodie," Todd said, eyeing the young employee from across the room. Jodie blushed slightly and waddled back to her seat, heaving and struggling to sit back down. These chairs and this table was clearly not designed for a pregnant woman, let alone an entire board of pregnant employees. "Monica, you need to stop pacing. You're stressing yourself out."
"There's reason to stress," Monica said, rubbing her belly rhythmically as she felt her numerous unborn children kicking inside her.
"You know what Andy would say," Todd said, giving his boss a caring look. "He'd say worrying so much isn't good for-"
"I know!" Monica barked, groaning as one of her babies gave her a sharp kick in the bladder, causing her to double over. Then, a light noise came from the computer projecting in the board room. "Oh no," Monica gasped.
"It's...it's happened," Charles said, looking at the screen. "Yaral Industries now officially owns EnerG."
"That's now why I said 'Oh no,'" Monica said. "My water just broke."
"It worked!" Jodie said excitedly, hopping out of her seat before bending over and groaning too. "Ooh...this doesn't feel as fun as I expected."
"Did someone say Xpect?" a silky voice said. The brunette who first came to the office to tell everyone about Xpect walked into the boardroom, a smile on her face that was almost as wide as her midsection. She, like everyone else in the room (and many other people in the city) was immensely pregnant, and like Jodie, didn't hide it.
"Y-you," Monica growled, clutching her own belly.
"Don't worry, everything is going to be alright," the brunette smiled, taking Monica by the hand and walking her out of the boardroom. "You can trust us. And now that we're working together, don't forget the Xpect slogan everyone: Xpect fills you with life."
Monica bolted awake in bed, her mind a fuzzy blur of what she just experienced in her dream. Like with any dream, the images themselves faded away quickly, but she was left with one clear impression: she had been pregnant.
Pregnancy dreams weren't uncommon for Monica. When she first learned that a developmental disorder in her ovaries would prevent her from ever being pregnant, Monica had lots of vivid dreams about being pregnant and having children she would never be able to carry or birth. They were unsettling enough, but Monica adjusted to the idea of never being pregnant with ease, but dreams about pregnancy remained. She'd never asked other women if they had similar dreams about pregnancy, so Monica didn't know if she was abnormal in that regard.
Still, that dream felt particularly...odd. It felt real and she distinctly remembered several of her coworkers being involved. Every now and then they would pop up (including the occasional confusing dream involving her and Todd), but never that many at once. And one other thing stuck with her.
"Xpect fills you with life," Monica murmured to herself.
"Wha?" Andy said, stirring on his side of the bed, rolling over to face his wife. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing, just a reaction to a weird dream," Monica smiled, patting her husband on the head. He smiled back, happy with his angle, looking up at his naked wife. Well, mostly naked. The bedsheet was still resting under her breasts. "Good sleep?"
"You really knocked the energy out of me last night," Andy smiled. "Too bad we had to stop a little early."
"Sorry about that," Monica said, covering her mouth. "And thanks for...changing the sheets after I threw up. It wasn't because of you, I swear."
"No?" Andy laughed again, bending over to kiss Monica against the hip. "Maybe I was just too much for you and you got motion sickness."
"Aw, honey," Monica sighed, patting Andy on the head. "You're good, but not that good."
Andy laughed and reached across Monica's torso. "I won't bug you anymore. You're already armed with a throw pillow and I don't want to get hit in the head."
Monica continued to grin. "Throw pillow?"
"Yeah, this pillow you're holding onto," Andy said, pulling back the sheets on Monica's side of the bed. To both of their surprises, what Andy saw bulging under the sheet was not a pillow, but Monica's stomach.
"Oh...oh my god," Monica said, placing her hand on her potbelly, stroking it gently. "I'm...fat."
"N...o, you're not fat," Andy said. "Look at you. Your sides, your thighs, everything-" He paused. "Everything else about you looks the same."
"What was that pause?" Monica said, narrowing her eyes.
"Well, to be honest, your chest and...butt look a little bigger, but in a good way," Andy said.
"Mmhmm," Monica nodded. "I wish I had that throw pillow now." Monica tossed her legs over the side of the bed and walked to the bathroom, giving Andy a chance to see definitively that, yes, her ass was bigger.
Monica took in the feel of the warm shower and let out a light coo. Her chest did feel more sensitive, but bigger? He was just trying to be nice. Or he was being a weirdo without trying. Monica was more focused on the fact that, overnight, her nausea seemed to go away and that was enough of a positive to disregard her sudden belly. Placing her hand against it, Monica noticed that it didn't feel like fat. It was tight and firm as it filled her palm. Maybe bloating? Whatever the case, Monica knew she'd been neglecting her exercise for a long time and this was the wakeup call she needed.
Walking around her apartment with her towel half-wrapped around her, Monica called Jodie, who was almost always available by cellphone. "Jodie, I have a PR campaign I want to try out: to promote our line of sports drinks, EnerG should hold a fitness day or maybe even some kind of fun run. What do you think?"
"I think that's a good idea, Mrs. Raymond, but I won't be coming into work today," Jodie said on the other end, her usual bubbliness all gone.
"Oh, are you still feeling that stomach bug?" Monica asked.
"No, I feel fine, but..." Jodie trailed off for a while before finishing her sentence. "I'm fat."
"What?"
"I'm having a fat day. I can't come in," Jodie said, completely serious.
"Jodie, listen to me: you are a gorgeous girl. Any man would give his left eye to see you naked with the right. If you gained a few pounds, you're still going to look amazing," Monica sighed, smiling a little at her young employee's naiveté. "Also, I'm your boss and a 'fat day' sounds absolutely stupid. You're coming in."
"Okay," Jodie sighed. "Just...don't make me come from behind my desk too much. I don't want people to see me."
"Goodbye, Jodie," Monica said, hanging up and rolling her eyes. Andy walked behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her, hands resting against her belly.
"Trouble at work?" Andy said.
"No, just...Jodie being Jodie," Monica said. "I need to get dressed and you need to take a shower. You reek."
"I kissed you on the lips after you threw up last night and you tell me I reek," Andy said, shaking his head. "I see I'm the one doing all the heavy lifting in this relationship."
"When you bring in the CEO-sized paycheck, then you can say that," Monica smiled, leaning back to kiss her husband.
"Yeah, yeah," Andy chuckled, giving Monica one last naked squeeze before letting her go. "Imagine if we had kids. We couldn't have these little arguments in the open anymore."
"Yeah," Monica said with a half-hearted laugh, her mind going back to her dream. "That's another positive of not having kids."
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