I had been working as a model for the past 4 years. I started when I was about 18, and I was discovered in a local mall in Dallas. It was the best thing that could happen o me. I didn’t fit in in Dallas. I was thin, gay, and had no interest in football, aside from the players.
The first 2 years were a whirlwind. My parents and basically signed my life away, and I was taken to NYC. I “lived” there for those first two years. When I say “lived”, its because I was never home. I was traveling all over the world. I was the new kid on the block and everyone wanted me. I had a great look for the time. I was tall, about 6’4’’, and skinny, about 150 lbs. I wore cloths really well, and had the most amazing pale skin. I never went out in the sun, and the whiteness of my skin looked great against my dark hair and eyes. Easter European magazines and fashion designers loved me especially because I looked like I was from there.
By the end of the 2 years of jet-setting, I was getting pretty burnt out. My manager’s advice was clear “you can sleep when you are dead”. But I felt like I was wasting away my life. I never really made any friends, except for a few of the guys who I regularly did shoots with, and it was very hard to keep up with family because I never really knew what time zone I was going to be in, so connecting was hard.
Against everyone’s wises, I decided to take the next year and slow it down a bit. I still was doing the modeling, I had to pay for my expenses in NYC. I would just stick to domestic jobs, and travel occasionally. I finally had my time to be myself, go out, meet people and just have a good time.
The fashion industry always has something going on, there is always an excuse for a party. I was still kind of the ‘it’ guy, so everyone always invited me. I was fun and was still very charming. As a result, I brought a lot of guys back to my apartment. I had a type, big, football player guys. I was tall, so I needed someone tall too, but I generally liked the guys who outweighed me by at least 100 lbs. I wasn’t into fat guys, just beefy guys. I was generally able to attract the wall street guys; ones that were in college football, and then went into the finance industry and made tons of money. They always had that great ex-jock look I loved.
About 8 months ago is when it happened. I ended up getting pregnant. I didn’t notice at first, but as soon as the morning sickness, which I just took for the flu, became a daily routine, I knew what had happened. Being raised a good southern boy; abortion was out of the question. I decided to just give the baby up for adoption. There was no way I could take care of a kid, I could barely manage to keep myself in order.
As my first trimester progressed, I continued to burn through the money I had saved for the last 3 years. I went on vacations, bought cloths, went out to dinners, and lived the same lifestyle I was accustomed to I just didn’t have the income I had before. I had to tell my manager as soon as it I found out. It’s not like I could have hid this. The industry still loved me, and I had a lot of friends, so they continued to book me for shoots that just involved my face, no more body shots.
It’s not that I was gaining too much weight with the pregnancy; it’s just that on my skinny body, any weight showed up. I was lucky in that it all went to my belly. I still had the face that had made me money. By the time I was 3 months along, I only gained about 7 lbs, but it all went to my belly, it wasn’t big, just round.
The month passed by and I continued to spend spend spend. Because I never paid attention to bills, it took a call from my manager to realize that I either had to get a real job, or stop living it up. Well, I want about to get a real job, so we started to look into modeling.
Male pregnancy was not huge right now. Occasionally you would flip thru a high end editorial fashion magazine as see a pregnant guy, they were usually very heavy with child, and looked like they could pop at any time. The art directors loved the contrast of the skinny body with the huge belly. That was the kind of look I had going on. I couldn’t do catalogue modeling for paternity wear; I just didn’t look like mainstream America.
My agent went to work trying to get me work, but at 5 months along, I didn’t really have a big belly yet. It was funny, after years of him sending me diet pills in order to stay skinny, my agent was now asking what I could do to gain weight. He was lucky enough to find a doctor that would prescribe me vitamins for the baby. My normal doctor wouldn’t do this because the baby was right on track as far as size goes, but we found a doctor, who, for a considerable sum, would get my pills to help the baby grow. Nothing crazy, but he said that instead of a normal 8 lbs baby, it might be 10 or so. There had been guys giving birth to 10 lbs babies all over the place, but with my narrow hips and genetics, I couldn’t give birth to a kid that size naturally.
Within a few weeks of taking the pills, I really saw a difference in the growth of my baby. I had gained about 25 lbs by my 7th month. Like I said before, not a ton of weight, but on me it was huge. Most of the weight went to my belly. I had a thin body but then a gut that looked like I swallowed a basket ball. Fortunately for me, it was perfectly round, and aside from a random appendage poking out, it was a perfect sphere. With his rapid weight gain, I was applying stretch mark cream every few hours, I was lucky that I didn’t develop any stretch marks, although they was my skin felt I should have. I woke up every morning with really itchy skin. Sometimes the bottom of my belly was sore because it had been stretched so fast. Under my pale skin, you could see a network of blue veins that were being pushed towards the surface by the monster baby growing within.
This was also the month that the jobs started rolling in. I once again started traveling a lot. Because the jobs were so sparse, I ended up traveling a lot. I got accustomed to being in hotels, eating alone, and just spending time with myself between shoots. I didn’t make it to the doctor as much as I should. My agent, who was the closest thing to a parent I had, was more interested in me making him money than the baby’s health, so he didn’t push the issue, he also told me to lie to the airlines about how far along I was so I could continue to travel.
The jobs for the most part were easy. I usually just stood there surrounded by other non pregnant models. They all had the body I used to, and generally wouldn’t include me in their fun after the shoots. With the rapid growth of the baby, I got tired easily. The shoots normally started early in the morning, and could last up to 12 hours. Its not that I did that much physical activity, but standing was getting to be a chore at this time.
When the shoot was over, the only thing I could think about was getting back to the hotel and going to sleep. Everyone else went out, but I stayed in, alone.
That brings me to where I am now. I’m sitting in a hotel room in some eastern European country; not a city, but a town. The art director found an amazing looking field that he wanted us all to pose in. Getting up this morning was a chore. I’m due in about 2 weeks, and everything hurts. It took me 3 attempts to roll out of the bed this morning. When I finally got into a seated position, I looked down at the orb in my lap.
The baby was huge now, and I looked like I was carrying around beach ball under my skin. It felt more like a medicine ball with all the weight. I had gained about 40 lbs in this pregnancy; that almost 30% of my starting weight. I couldn’t imagine I was close to 200 lbs, and it was all belly.
Going to the mirror I took a look at myself. I looked tired. The bed wasn’t the most comfortable, and my back was killing me. Turning to the side I could see the deep arch that the baby had pulled my back into. My belly which was normally so round was now oblong shaped. The baby was starting to drop for the birth, and it was taking a toll on me. Although I was religious about applying stretch mark cream, a few had developed on my lower belly as the baby dropped deeper into my hips. I prayed that the photographer wouldn’t care, and he could photo shop them away.
I met the team downstairs and we all got into the bus. I crammed myself into one of the small seat, and hope that the site wasn’t too far away, because I was terribly uncomfortable. We made it to the site in about 30 minutes which was just at my breaking point. I had to go tot the bathroom all the time, as I wasn’t about to try to wedge myself into the tiny bathroom on the bus.
When we got to make up, I could tell the photographer wasn’t happy about my stretch marks. He came around to take a look at me, and told the translator that he wanted concealer put on them so he couldn’t see them. I felt like punching him because I should have had a lot more based on the size of the baby. The makeup artist went to work on the underside of my belly, pushing and prodding. They woke the normally quite baby up, and I was pummeled with kicks and jabs from within. When we got to the set, there was another problem, because the kid was active, my belly was taking on weird shapes. The director stopped the shoot several times and asked me to push the elbow, or whatever was poking out, back in, so I looked rounder.
By the time the sun was setting, and we ran out of natural light, I was exhausted. The shoot required me to be in all sorts of positions that a 9 month pregnant man was never meant to be in. At the end of the day, the director was happy with the shots, so I didn’t have to stay an extra day. I was looking forward to bed, and my flight in the morning.
When I got to the room, I had a few of the left over pastries from this morning, and got stripped down to my underwear and got into bed. I was out within 10 minutes of my head hitting the pillow. As was customary, I ended up waking up a few times in the middle of the night. Usually it was just to go to the bathroom, but this time it was because of a pain in my back. I struggled to a standing position and walked around my room for a few minutes until the pain subsided. Id then lay myself into bed and try to get some more sleep. By the time it was midnight, I was starting to get nervous that this was labor.
I was pacing around the room, one hand glued to my back, and the other trying to relax my belly. I felt tension in there. It wasn’t hard, but just firmer than it had been that day. The baby had calmed down from the makeup incident this afternoon, and I felt like it had moved deeper into my hips.
By about 2am, I decided that I needed some help. I quickly pulled on my bathrobe, and tried to tie it, but bathrobes aren’t made for heavily pregnant men! I closed it just enough so that my belly was covered, and went down the hall to the other rooms where the models were staying. I knocked on a few doors, but as I suspected, everyone was out celebrating. I went back to my room and sat at the desk, trying to figure out what to do. I looked down at my belly and saw it start to move. A contraction was gripping my body. I could feel it start to tighten in my back and then move around to my belly button. The tightness held there for a second before my whole belly was quivering as the muscles contracted. I just sat there and tried to remember to breathe thru the pain.
I made a decision to get to the hospital. If there was something worse than having to have a baby in an eastern European hospital alone, it was having one in a hotel room. I put on some mesh shorts and a tank top that barely fit over my belly and grabbed my dictionary. I made my way down to the front desk, and asked the door man for a taxi to the hospital. Luckily he spoke English.
He helped me outside and got me into a cab. I inched my way into the small backseat and went a long for the ride. As each contraction came, I spread my legs wider, feeling the baby press its head deeper into me. My tank top rode up as I swayed back and forth in the back seat, trying to dissipate the pain from the contractions. It rode up to the point of my belly button, which had popped out, being exposed. It was actually nice to feel the air on my skin; I was getting hot going thru the contractions.
Im not sure how long I was in the cab, but we suddenly pulled up to what looked like a hospital. The door swung open and all of a sudden someone reached for my hands and started pulling me out. Before I knew it, I was sitting in a wheel chair and being wheeled to the front desk. Then I was being asked a barrage of questions, or what I assumed were questions. I couldn’t understand anyone. I think they got the point that I wasn’t from there, and stopped asking me.
Just as I was going to go to my dictionary to try to figure out what was wrong, I felt a contraction coming on. I grasped my knees and started breathing heavily. I pulled my knees apart and moaned as the pain washed over me. Through the pain I noticed 2 hands pressing into my belly, feeling it heave and tighten. It was the hands of what I assumed to be a nurse. They must have known that this was urgent, so they hurried me to the elevator.
Not being able to communicate was tough, I didn’t know what was going on with my body and they couldn’t ask me any questions. When the elevator doors opened, they pushed me down a sterile looking hallway. We turned right into a big room lined with beds. There were about 10 beds in the room, and all were filled with men in labor. The beds weren’t the kind that you see in American hospitals, they were essentially cots.
Each man was just laying there, some on their backs, some on their sides. No one was hooked up to any monitors, they were just laboring. The wheelchair took me to an empty bed, and they pulled me up. The one orderly started pulling up my tank top while the other grabbed at my shorts and began pulling them down. Before I knew it I was naked in a room full of people. Just before they started putting the robe on me, I could feel both of them poking and prodding at my belly. They must have been noting the size of my gut, because I knew they were trying to feel how big the baby was, and how heavy he was. The wrapped the gown around me and helped me get down to the bed.
A few minutes later, someone, who I assumed, was a doctor came in and came to my bed. He immediately pulled up my gown, and began feeling around my womb. I could feel as he pushed the baby to one side, It crashed into a few organs, he pushed at my belly from the top, and the head grinded further into my opening. The then took my legs and spread them wide. He put on a pair of gloves and started examining me. I didn’t understand anything he said, and he really didn’t even acknowledge I was there.
As soon as the doctor came in, he left. When he was gone, I took a few minutes to survey my roommates. These were all men, or all ages, in various stages of labor. I could see one guy who was rather young. He looked like he had just gotten there, like me, but he wasn’t as far into labor. He sat up in the bed, legs crossed and read a book. He would occasionally start panting, but only for a few seconds as the contraction came and went.
In another corner was a man, who must have been in his mid 30s. He was very far along in his labor, and I could tell he was pushing. He lay flat on his back, belly heaving in the air, with his hands grabbing at the sheets. I saw his face turn bright red as he bore down. He was alone though, no one was there, not even a nurse. I was afraid he was going to deliver right there, with no one to catch the baby. A few minutes later a nurse came by, took a peak under his sheet, and patted him on the belly. I guess she was ok with this? Was he just supposed to push until the baby was almost born?
For the next hour I labored in my bed. There wasn’t much room, the bed was like a twin bed, and not very soft. I would just lie on my side and wrap my arms around by belly, trying to get thru the contractions. The gowns we wore were very light weight, and within a few minutes, I was drenched in sweat and the gown was almost translucent. Every 45 minutes or so someone would come by, feel around my belly, and then take a look between my legs and be on their way.
By about 6 am, I felt different. The contractions were getting strong and very close together. I didn’t really know how to communicate with anyone, so when the staff came over to check on me, I was sure to not suppress my moans. I wanted them to know that I felt like the baby was coming. That must have done the trick, because all of a sudden, the nurse came by and brought a doctor. He again palmed my belly and took a look under my gown. He then said something to the nurse and she came back a few minutes later with an instrument that looked like a long crochet needle. I got immediately scared and closed my legs up. The nurse then got another orderly, and they both held my legs open while the doctor did something between my legs. I felt him go inside with the needle and poke around, and then I felt it. He must have popped my water because 2 seconds later it came out, all over the bed.
The team then tried to lift me off the bed and change the sheets. Standing up was hard, I could feel that the baby had moved a lot deeper; it felt like it could fall out at any minute. After my water broke, the contractions began coming stronger and lasting longer. There was hardly a break between them.
An hour later I got that feeling of fullness in my bottom. I felt the pressure of the head hanging at my opening. I lay on my back, legs spread wide, and I did what felt natural, I pushed.
Pushing felt like a relief, although it brought on more pain. I felt like I was at least making some progress. I had read that pushing a baby out can take hours, so I wasn’t concerned that there wasn’t anyone here with me. In fact, I had seen some of the other guys in the room pushing alone too, fortunately the nurse/or doctor came before the baby was born.
Although I had no formal direction on how to push, i had seen enough movies to give me a rough idea. I knew that I was supposed to push with the contraction. When ever I felt one coming on I would grab at the sides of the bed. My belly was so big and hard with the contraction, that curling up around it and grabbing my knees was all but impossible. My hands would grab at sheets or the sides of the bed and Id push with all my might. I could see some of the guys saying things to me, but I didn’t understand them. I continued to push for the length of the contraction and then fall to the bed when it was over.
I felt like I was making some progress. The burning in my hips was replaced by a burning in my bottom. I wasn’t sure where the baby was, but the burning was a sensation I didn’t like and I pushed furiously to get past it. I felt my self being stretch wide as the baby made progress through my insides. I didn’t really notice that no one was there. It felt natural to push, and that’s what I did.
The burning sensation continued, and I mustered all the strength I could to get past it. With a final push, I felt it, the head escaped my body. I fell back to the bed and caught my breath. It was a great feeling getting the head out. That was the biggest part, and I was almost over. I lay back and looked at my big belly for the last time. it looked a little deflated, but still round and high in the air. Sweat was running rivers off the sides, and with each deep breath I took, it rose and sank.
I got up all the strength I had left and grabbed for the sides of the bed. I pushed and pushed, and finally felt the rest of the body leave mine. The baby must have fallen to the bed, no one was there to catch him.