Real life pregnancies that were (or were not) incorporated into the story.

[Nicholas Blair]

Robin Strasser's pregnancy led to Agnes Nixon creating the Rachel/Steve/Alice triangle which gave great drama to AW fans for several years.

According to a magazine interview with Ann Flood, when she was pregnant in the early years of EON, they put her behind furniture, shot from the shoulders up, etc., but one viewer wrote to her and said she could tell that Ann was pregnant because of her eyes. AF said she was very touched by this.

[Forever8]

I believe Melissa Reeves's first pregnancy was written for Abby on DAYS in 1992. 

Julia Barr's pregnancy was written in when Brooke had Laura on All My Children. I believe they were initially going to have Tom and Brooke struggle with infertility. 

Charlotte Ross' pregnancy was written in on NYPD Blue despite her character, Connie, being told she couldn't have anymore children because of a complication she had with her character's first pregnancy when she was a teen. 

When Kassie DePaiva was pregnant with her son on One Life To Live, Blair was pregnant with Brendan. I remember reading/hearing that it wasn't an easy pregnancy.

 

 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Forever8

[will81]

Oh that's right, that is when she got abducted and we saw her very pregnant belly when she was being 'probed' and they made it look like 'they' (the government/aliens???) were inflating her stomach with something. 

[j swift]

Poor Bobbie Spencer was sent off to a "fat farm" to hide Jacklyn Zeman's pregnancy. 

[Franko]

Both of her pregnancies were written in. The first one coincided with Lucy being married to Alan. She set out to get pregnant so that she'd forever have a finger in the Quartermaine pie. The problem was that Scott was the actual baby daddy. The baby, "Eddie Jr.", died when Lucy miscarried after Alan found out the truth.

[titan1978]

That was awful even back then!

[Paul Raven]

Didn't GL use the same weight gain/fat farm story when Denise Pence (Katie) was pregnant in 79?

And AW replaced Laura Malone (Blaine) with Judy Dewey, supposedly as a temp. But Laura never came back and Judy took over the role.

[amybrickwallace]

It was. They wrote Jennifer off as being out of town while MR was on maternity leave.

[Forever8]

Wasn't Marcy Walker pregnant IRL when Eden was pregnant on Santa Barbara? 

I remember Jennifer Gareis was pregnant, I think for the first time. They had Pam make some type of joke insisting she's been eating something because she is "porking up" there on Bold and Beautiful. 

Katey Sagal's first pregnancy was written in "Married with Children," also having Peggy pregnant. Though sadly, in real life, it ended in stillbirth, making the previous season "a dream season." out of respect. I was reminded of this while watching her in an old TV movie this morning with Charlotte Ross in which her character was pregnant too. 

 

 

[Kane]

Loving had two storylines dealing with separate Noelle Beck pregnancies in 1991. She gave birth to her first at the beginning of 1991 and was temporarily replaced by Jessica Steen after threatening to walk (her contract was up for renewal) when she learned that the show wanted her to play out the death of Trisha's baby.

By mid-91 she was pregnant again and that pregnancy was also written in, so in early '92 Trisha was written out for a couple of months after having her second baby.

In between the two pregnancy stories, Trisha and Trucker adopted a baby and then saw the adoption reversed, so they had three different baby stories in 1991, which is ridiculous.

[amybrickwallace]

Yes.

[Forever8]

Lindsay Hartley's pregnancy was written in on Passions when Theresa was doing the whole surrogacy storyline with Ethan/Gwen. 

Rebecca Herbst last two pregnancies were written on GH when Liz was having Cameron and Aidan. 

I believe Heather Tom was pregnant when Katie was too on Bold and Beautiful. I remember when Katie had post-partum depression, she was on maternity leave. 

 

 

[wonderwoman1951]

on atwt, hilliary b smith’s first pregnancy led to margo’s affair with hal and the birth of adam, who was played as an infant by her real life son.

[Frank2803]

It's cool how some of these pregnancies have led to years worth of storylines 

[applcin]

And her previous pregnancy wasn't. There were a lot of camera tricks, big bags and all, but towards the end, they had Kayla laying in bed due to being poisoned by Harper Deveraux.

Written in:
Kate Mulgrew (RH). But while Mary kept her baby, Kate gave hers up for adoption.
Sharon Gabet (EON) was pregnant when Raven was pregnant with her and Sky's daughter.

Not written in:
Erika Slezak (OLTL) - Christine Jones subbed when ES went out on maternity in the early 80s.

 

I've always believed it was the intent of TPTB to continue L & L in the action/adventure mode upon their return...heck, there was a lot of action just in their journey back to PC. I think Genie's pregnancy changed plans for Laura and set the character in a different direction, a more domestic one, that she may not have gone quite as soon. 

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by applcin