Art Shtuff : )

I had a LOT of fun with this. I absolutely love IDW's design and i very much enjoyed puzzling out how he'd look carrying. I know a lot of mechpreg artists like the belly and others don't, so I took from both (because I'm a fan of both) and made it so he gets a lot bulkier during his carry, first his chassis to protect both his and the newspark, and then after descent his tum accumulates a lot more plating to protect the growing sparkling (yes I wanted to give him a dad bod yall know he deserves it)

Yall've probably noticed that he's tense here, and that's because I headcanon that IDW OP's pregnancy would be wildly complicated and uncomfortable.

We all know that in IDW Optimus' spark chamber was surgically altered to accommodate the matrix right?? Well I think that would prove to cause a lot of complications while carrying. Because of said alterations, the newspark would have trouble growing and gathering enough energy from Optimus' spark, resulting in early term high risk of miscarriage. For the same reason, descent would also be terribly complicated because his body would have to work extra hard to allow room for the spark to travel downwards to his forge.

The latter part of his carriage would simply be exhausting because of early term complications and how much energy his body both consumes on a daily basis and for the sparkling. I think he'd just be tired and achy all the time and would generally just feel like shit. Personally, though, I don't think he'd show his discomfort. He'd do his best to hide it to keep others from worrying. So I think he'd use his hands to release the discomfort and probably bite his tongue to keep from groaning during sparkling movement.

Really, I just love the concept of OP having a hard pregnancy for the angst. You're welcome