Atkins Fatkins

When I learned I was pregnant for a second time, I knew that one of the most difficult hurdles to cross would be the dreaded Third Trimester.

It's a special rite of passage for all moms-to-be, a time to get up close and personal with the Great Big Pimple-Assed Ugly that lurks deep inside all of us. I don't care how petitely pregnant you are, how perfectly toned your arms and legs, or what a cute little shape your butt has stayed in up to your eighth month of baby incubation. By the Third Trimester, not only will you- all of you- swell up like a bag of microwave popcorn, but you'll likely sprout a double chin and a sprinkling of belly hair to boot. Ask anyone who's birthed a baby- That's just The Way It Is.

Why else do you think that every last picture from my inaugural Third Trimester is securely stashed in a double-locked box that's buried in concrete ten feet below the house? There are some things the world just doesn't need to see, including but not limited to all visual memories of the two-hour mingle-of-shame in which I let my mom convince me to wear her clothes to my baby shower (leaving my friends, many of whom I hadn't seen in months, to deduce that pregnancy had transformed me from Queen of the Minidress to Rue McClanahan's extraordinarily bloated Number One Fan).

Fortunately, once Baby arrived, the weight came off fairly quickly. Moving on to fetus number two, when the eighth month approached and I noticed my ankles begin to inflate, my face plumpen and my ass spread, I remained unflappable.

"Two more months and I'll be on my way back to normal," I told myself. "Just avoid all mirrors and everything will be fine."

But then something happened. Something truly horrible.

"I'm going on the Atkins diet," Hubs announced last week with an infuriating smirk on his face.

"Yeah, right!" I laughed, my double chins shaking with merriment.

"I am," he insisted. "I'm going on the Atkins diet. Starting tomorrow."

Outwardly, I remained silent. But inside, my inner banshee took over.

Could his timing BE any worse?! The man hasn't gone on a diet in a good two years- So he decides to do it NOW?! Now that I'm growing at the same rate as Posh Beckham's CREDIT CARD BILL?! I'll bet he wants to lose weight just so he'll look even thinner beside his freaking Supersized Wife!

Whatever, I told myself. He can diet all he wants. We just won't talk about it.

Ha. The diet soon became the only topic of conversation in this house.

"Unbelievable. I've only been on this diet one day and I've already lost a pound!"

"I feel so great right now, like I've really got my weight loss momentum going again!"

"You can tell I lost weight, can't you?"

"At this rate, I can lose 15 pounds and be back where I was when we married!"

"This diet is really easy! I gorged last night on sausage! Gorged!"

"I just weighed myself again and I haven't lost anything. I'm really down."

"You can't really tell I've lost any weight, can you? Or can you?"

"I'm going to go to the gym five nights a week from now on!"

"I just weighed myself 30 minutes after the last time I weighed myself and I'm back down another half pound! Can you believe it?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, honey. I can believe it. You're on a diet. Woo de fucking hoo. Let me just put down my Ben and Jerry's and get the girls to roll me over on the sofa so I can hear you better.

Toward the beginning, I gently mentioned to Hubs that while I was of course totally supportive of his weight loss efforts, perhaps we could limit diet talk to, oh, about 70% of our conversation, as opposed to the current 100%. After all, I explained kindly, it's hard to get excited about his amazing new diet and how great it's making him look-- while at the same time personally fielding such remarks as, "Boy you are really going to have a hamburger there, aren't you?!" from his best friend when he laid his eyes on my belly last week (I don't know what that meant, either, but it couldn't have been good).

But honestly? I think Hubs's ear canals are so stopped up right now with Atkins-approved congealed bacon grease and his brain synapses so clogged by carb counting that there's no room for anything else in there but jargon culled from repeated readings of the Atkins Diet Handbook.

Now, a week later, he's nine pounds lighter. Helpless with rage and indigestion, I lie beached in a maternity mumu, plotting my future revenge.

I'll wait 'til he gains all the weight back! And then I'll lose all my baby weight in like, a month! Like Katie Holmes! And I'll wear a BIKINI to the YMCA pool at the same time that he's gasping away on the treadmill and I'll splash around in front of everyone from our neighborhood! He'll be SO MAD! And I'll be so... THIN!

And I'll have to get all new clothes, because nothing I own will fit me anymore! And I'll get, um, hair extensions, even though I don't need them! Because that's what you do when you're thin, you get hair extensions! And an orange spray-on tan! And he'll be SO MAD! And I'll be SO THIN! And so ORANGE!

Yep, in just a few months, things are going to be very different around here... He'll be sorry he ever messed with eight-months-pregnant-me.