Young, healthy and about 140 pounds when I became pregnant with my first child, I didn’t weigh, if you will, the consequences of embarking on a nine month-long, no hold’s barred all-you-can-eat buffet. I was pregnant and eating for two. I couldn’t think of a better excuse to do just that, so I did.

    I didn’t stop eating for the entire duration of my pregnancy: I ate every waking moment and sometimes woke for the sole purpose of eating. By the time I showed, I had gained so much weight everywhere else that I didn’t show at all.

    It was only when I went for my monthly checkups at the OB-GYN that I had to face reality. So I faced it, but not honestly. The one reason I looked forward to these visits was the amazing falafel stand right down the street from my doctor’s office. Sometimes I’d have a falafel (with extra tahini) on my way to the doctor and sometimes I’d have one on my way home. A few times I indulged both coming and going.

    I’d gotten my OB appointments down to a science: during every visit I would tell a joke or funny story to distract the nurse, Deb -- who found me divertingly entertaining -- so much so that she’d almost forget to weigh me. She was always in such a hurry to get to her next patient that by the time she’d ask me to hop on the scale, I’d save her her time -- stating I’d gotten on the scale at home and providing a fictionalized weight. (I always consulted the laminated “typical gestational weight-gain” poster on the wall just to make sure my numbers were reasonably accurate.) By Month Seven my chart stated I’d gained about 18 pounds, an entirely suitable amount. Clever, too, I thought, because it left room for a few more pounds for me to gain in the last couple of months.

    The fact no one mentioned my heft (to me, at least) was helpful to my delusion. In fact, I thought maybe I hadn’t gained that much weight after all. Maybe it was all in my head! It was almost plausible, considering I avoided looking in all mirrors. I did, however, catch a glimpse of myself in a pane window while walking down the street but thankfully, I didn’t recognize myself; I thought I was my Aunt Bernice who happened to wave to me at the same time I waved to her.

    I believed I’d get away with my ruse for the duration of my pregnancy and figured I’d lose weight after the baby was born. According to my calculations, I would shed at least 20 to 25 pounds in the delivery room. And because I was going to breastfeed, the rest of my “baby weight” would simply melt right off. Within two months I’d be pushing a stroller, wearing the jeans I couldn’t fit into even before I was pregnant.

    As long as I wore very big tee shirts and black stretchy pants and lied to the nurse, my “problem” didn’t exist. No harm; no foul.

    During a late-month visit, my regular nurse -- Deb, the one who’d thought I was funny and had teddy bears on her stethoscope -- was inexplicably gone. I sat in the waiting room idly thumbing through a magazine on whose cover was a skinny pregnant model, and didn’t notice her absence until an unfamiliar voice called my name. I looked up and gulped hard. Standing at the door in an unwelcoming posture was an evil hybrid of Nurse Ratchett and Frau Blucher. She had a thin mustache and a thick accent, and she sported a tight bun fastened to her scalp with symmetrically placed black bobby pins. Her entire torso was as wide as one of my thighs. And in her starched white uniform, opaque tights and crepe-soled orthopedic shoes, I knew she was trouble.

    I followed her to the exam room, took off my tablecloth-sized jacket, heaved myself on the stirrup-laced table and flipped open the magazine I’d jacked from the waiting room. But I was nervous.

    “Doctor is running a little late,” she said as she put my chart on the desk.

    “That’s okay!” I chirped. “I’m just reading this article about giving birth under water. I wonder if those obstetricians are SCUBA certified?”

    She narrowed her eyes at me. “Vhat?”

    I winced. This wasn’t going well. I smiled and pointed to the magazine: “You know, when they deliver babies under water... Do you think the doctors use self-contained underwater breathing apparatus?” I was trying to crack her Berlin Wall-like facade. Maybe she’d be so impressed by my knowledge of the SCUBA acronym she’d forget to…

    “I need to vay you.”

    Uh oh. “That’s okay.” “I got on the scale at home and I hate having conflicting weights, don’t you?”

    Silence.

    I persevered: “I, um, weigh… well, this morning, I weighed…”

    Her eyes shone an alien-like blackness. And she was blocking my view of the gestational poster.

    “Really, it’s fine. I know you’re busy so I can just do it after you… leave the room?” Oh god.

    She said nothing, tilting her pointy head in the direction of the gleaming doctor’s scale.

    It was over and I knew it. I slid off the table and began my slow shuffle toward destiny. But I hesitated: “May I take off my sweater first…?”

    “Ze scale, pleeze.”

    I exhaled and stepped on. She slid up the little rectangular arrow on the bottom to the “one hundred pounds” line. Then she slid the top arrow toward the right. All the way. She moved her bony hand back down to the bottom nob and nudged it to one-fifty, and again, moved her fingers up to the top nob. She began sliding it: one sixty. One sixty-five. One seventy. One seventy-five. One eighty. One eighty-five…

    It finally slowed down before its final resting place, at one hundred eighty-eight pounds. One. Hundred. Eighty-eight. Pounds.

    I was sweating profusely but acted casual. And as I made my way back to the table, I whistled and gazed at the ceiling of the small room like I was strolling through the Sistine Chapel.

    Nurse Diesel perused my chart for a second before snapping around to face me. Alarm radiated from her flaring nostrils.

    “You have gained 40 pounds in ze past month.”

    “ Whoa! Forty pounds? No WAY!” I slapped an accessible part of my eggplant-like torso in mock shock. “Those mid-day falafels sure do add up!”

    “Quick! Lay on ze table on your left side.” She darted out of the room.

    So, I gained a few extra pounds… So what? Almost immediately the door crashed open and an army of doctors, nurses and quasi-medical personnel filed in. Why all the fuss?

    Heading the charge was my obstetrician, Judy White-Clogs. Her team took my vitals, measured my abdomen and poked my wrists and ankles. Someone mentioned something about swelling; Judy started talking about crazy things, like toxemia, pre-eclampsia and early labor. I thought it might be time to chat with her about the little weight misunderstanding.

    “Um, Judy? Do you have a second? I need to talk to you privately.”

    The room silenced but no one left. So I lowered my voice: “Seriously, this whole thing is just… Well, it’s kind of funny, actually. I can’t explain it medically. It’s not technically medical… I didn’t really gain all that weight. Not at once. I’ve been, um, kind of fudging it all along.”

    I glanced at the faces tending to me; they averted their eyes.

    What exactly is the sound of acute embarrassment? I think it’s an amalgam of memories harkening back to every humiliation you’ve ever experienced. The sound of my embarrassment at that moment was as loud as a flock of ten thousand seagulls hovering over my head and fighting for one discarded falafel -- with extra tahini sauce.

    Oddly, Judy White-Clogs didn’t seem too surprised. Maybe other fatsos had gone to similar lengths pretending they were no different from pregnant models on the covers of magazines. Or maybe she was just happy her day had been relieved of one potential catastrophe. She told me to take it easy with my food intake, or something to that effect, and sent me home.

    On the way (it was before lunch), I had a falafel with extra tahini sauce.