Nine Months Ago

I stood in front of the mirror, gently tracing the curve of my belly with my fingertips. My baby bump was enormous now, at nine months—round and heavy, a constant reminder of how far I’d come. It still amazed me how much my body had changed. My skin felt tight, my belly button had popped, and I could feel the baby’s little movements beneath my hand. It was strange, yet somehow beautiful, knowing that life was growing inside me. My ankles were swollen, and getting out of bed in the morning was a struggle, but none of that mattered. I had never imagined being here, not like this.

Nine months ago, I was living as a man. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then, and in a way, it had. Back then, I was pushing my girlfriend to have a baby. We had been together for a while, and I thought it was the natural next step. She wasn’t ready, though. I didn’t realize how much my persistence was pushing her away until it was too late. Instead of telling me she wasn’t ready, she took matters into her own hands. That’s when everything changed.

She found this device on the black market. I didn’t even know such things existed, but one night she showed it to me, calling it a surprise. I had no idea what she was planning. Before I knew it, she’d used the device on me, and in a matter of seconds, I was transformed—completely, utterly female. I couldn’t believe it at first. I stood in front of the mirror, much like I was now, but instead of the round belly of pregnancy, I had the body of a woman staring back at me. My voice, my figure, everything was different. It wasn’t just physical, though. She’d messed with my hormones, too.

She wasn’t done there. My girlfriend wanted me to experience what I had been so obsessed with—having a baby—but not in the way I had imagined. She set me up on a date with my best friend, Nick. I thought she was kidding at first, but she was serious. She told me to go out with him, as a woman, and she had tweaked my body to be at its peak fertility and libido. She even made sure I *wanted* it to happen. I remember feeling conflicted, but I couldn’t resist the pull. My body was practically begging for him.

The date with Nick started innocently enough. We went out to dinner, reminisced about old times, laughed like we used to when we were just friends. But something was different—*I* was different. I noticed the way he looked at me, the way his eyes lingered on my body. It was strange, feeling this feminine desire rise up in me. My girlfriend’s tweaks had done their job—I wanted him, badly.

After dinner, we ended up back at his apartment, and I could feel the tension in the air. Before I even realized what was happening, we were kissing, and everything else melted away. I should have stopped it, should have thought about what this meant, but I didn’t. My body craved him in ways I never knew were possible. We ended up in his bed, and that night, we had unprotected sex—just like my girlfriend had planned. The sensation of being with a man, feeling him inside me, was overwhelming, and all I could think about was how much I *needed* it in that moment. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

Weeks later, I started noticing the signs. My breasts felt fuller, my emotions were all over the place, and I felt constantly nauseous. A pregnancy test confirmed what I already suspected: I was pregnant. But instead of panic, I felt… happy. I didn’t expect it, but seeing those two pink lines filled me with a strange sense of joy. The irony wasn’t lost on me—after all my pushing, *I* was the one who ended up pregnant, and it wasn’t even with my girlfriend. It was with Nick. She got exactly what she wanted. 

As the pregnancy progressed, I found myself falling for Nick more and more. He was so supportive, so kind. He was there for every doctor’s appointment, held my hand when we first heard the baby’s heartbeat, and talked about the future as if we’d been planning this together all along. He had no idea that I used to be his best guy friend, and as time went on, it didn’t seem to matter. We were becoming a family.

Then came the night Nick proposed. It wasn’t anything flashy—just a quiet evening at the park. We were sitting on a bench, watching the sunset, and he reached for my hand. “I want to do this with you,” he said, looking at me with those soft, sincere eyes. “I want to be with you, raise our baby together. Will you marry me?”

I didn’t even hesitate. I said yes, eagerly, without a second thought. It felt right. By then, I had fully embraced the life growing inside me, and I couldn’t picture a future without Nick by my side. The pregnancy had changed everything, but it had also brought us closer in ways I never thought possible.

But life had a way of twisting things around. Just when I thought I had found my place in this new reality, I heard the news. My ex—the one who had started this entire thing—had gotten pregnant, too. I found out through a mutual friend who didn’t know the whole story, just that she had gotten wasted one night, hooked up with some random guy, and now she was pregnant. The irony of it hit me hard. After all that manipulation, after everything she put me through to get me into this situation, she ended up in the same place herself.

A part of me felt satisfied, like some kind of cosmic justice had been served. But another part of me just felt sad for her. She had lost control of the very thing she’d been trying to control so tightly. I hadn’t spoken to her in months, not since everything went down, but hearing about her pregnancy left me feeling strangely at peace. Our lives had taken completely different paths, and while I had found happiness with Nick and our baby, she was facing her own consequences.

I turned back to the mirror, looking at my reflection again—this time, not with disbelief, but with acceptance. My body, my life, had changed in ways I never imagined, but I was ready. Ready to meet the baby I was carrying, ready to start a new chapter with Nick, and ready to face whatever came next.