If a TV show is on for a long time, it's very likely that some of its actresses get pregnant. When pregnancies happen, showrunners deal with it in a variety of ways. They can either include the pregnancy into the show's script, somehow working along with it, or they can resort to special measures to hide the actress' baby bump. This way, the writers don't need to change the script all that much.

On the other hand, if a TV show is on for a long time (especially if it features couples), it's likely that the showrunners will want to make some of the characters get pregnant themselves. And, in case the real-life pregnancy of an actress and fictional baby bump of her character don't coincide in time, the actress will have to wear a special pregnancy suit on set.

This, of course, isn't outrageous information, but for some reason, we don't really think about it while watching our favorite shows. Besides, it's not really an easy task to tell a real pregnancy from a fake one on TV. Those fake bellies usually look realistic! But wouldn't it be fun to know what TV actresses were pregnant on the job and who had to sweat buckets, wearing a fake belly? Let's find out!

20 Lisa Kudrow On ‘Friends’

One of the most hilarious plot twists in Friends was in season four when Phoebe got pregnant. She didn't do it for herself, but she agreed to carry her brother's triplets. However funny it was, this plot twist wasn't originally in the show. They added it after Lisa Kudrow, the actress who played Phoebe, announced that she got pregnant. Now no one knows, what they had in store for the fourth season of the show, but the change to the script certainly added funny moments; especially when Phoebe baffled strangers saying that she was carrying her brother's triplets.

However, since Phoebe was expecting triplets, Kudrow still had to wear a fake belly on top of her real one. You know, to look even more pregnant than she actually was.

19 Ellen Pompeo On ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

You might want to object to this entry and say that Ellen Pompeo was actually pregnant while starring in Grey's Anatomy, and you'd be right. However, her character, Meredith Grey, wasn't pregnant during this time (and vice versa when Meredith got preggers, Pompeo wasn't expecting a child).

It's rather strange why showrunners decided not to use the actress' real-life pregnancy in the show. After all, Meredith and Derek just got married then, so it'd make sense to add a baby. Nevertheless, both times Meredith was pregnant in the show (and the third time, when she lost a child), Pompeo had to wear a fake belly.

18 Sofia Vergara On ‘Modern Family’

In season three of Modern Family, Sofia Vergara's character Gloria announced her pregnancy. It seemed that this plot twist came out of nowhere and some fans suggested that it was because Vergara herself got pregnant. However, this wasn't the case. The actress had to wear a fake baby bump on the show and, like Emily Deschanel, she hated wearing it. "It’s really hot, it’s really uncomfortable," Vergara shared in an interview with Access. "Yeah, I really feel pregnant, but it helps to get in character, because literally you can’t bend."

17 Fake: Jennifer Aniston On ‘Friends’

The character of Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow's colleague on the show, also was expecting a baby, but in this case, the pregnancy was fake. While Rachel Green gave birth to Ross Geller's daughter Emma in season eight, Jennifer Aniston wasn't expecting a child during the show, nor at any other time in her life. Even though the paparazzi spotted the actress with a seemingly enlarged belly more than once, Aniston has never had a child and she's completely fine with that. In the series, however, Rachel became a mommy. She was scared of it at first, but in the end, she was happy to have Ross' child and get back together with him to the joy of all fans.

16 Alyson Hannigan On ‘How I Met Your Mother’

Want to know a fun fact? Alyson Hannigan was pregnant twice during the filming of How I Met Your Mother. The first pregnancy was noticed only by the most attentive fans of the show, and this was because the showrunners decided not to include it into the series and did their best to hide the actress' belly. They used all the popular props to hide her belly; from filming Hannigan mostly in a seated position, to having her wear loose clothing, to her hiding behind different objects.

But when the actress got a bun in the oven a second time, they finally decided to make Lily pregnant, too. It was season seven of the show. Interestingly enough, the actress and her character gave birth almost simultaneously. But while Lily had a son in the show, Alyson delivered a baby daughter.

15 Elizabeth Banks On ‘Scrubs’

When Kim got pregnant with J.D.'s baby in Scrubs, some fans thought that this plot twist occurred because the actress was pregnant herself. After all, it was quite an unexpected move, especially since the two of them were dating for a very short time and, technically, didn't even sleep together.

However, Elizabeth Banks, who played Kim, wasn't expecting a child at all. The pregnancy on the show was planned from the very beginning. This way, showrunners decided to make J.D. have a baby in the weirdest way possible.

14 Emily Deschanel On ‘Bones’

In season seven of Bones, we saw Temperance Brennan heavily pregnant with Seeley Booth's child. But not only the show's renown anthropologist was expecting a child, but so was Emily Deschanel, the actress who played her.

Deschanel gave birth to her son a little bit earlier than Brennan, so in the episode, where Brennan was in labor, the actress had to wear a fake belly.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Deschanel said that she was glad to have to do it only for one episode because it was "very sweaty in there." In the same interview, the actress also noted that it was fun for her to see how the show mirrored her real life after childbirth, from sleep deprivation to hormones.

13 Gina Rodriguez On ‘Jane the Virgin’

It'd be weird to think that the showrunners of Jane the Virgin wanted to find an already-pregnant actress to play Jane; a young woman who accidentally got pregnant through artificial insemination. So, obviously, Gina Rodriguez, who played the main character, was wearing a fake baby bump.

We should praise the showrunners for making Jane's pregnancy timeline rather realistic in the series. See, she got an accidental bun in the oven in the first episode and gave birth to a child in the season one finale.

In fact, if Rodriguez was actually pregnant, it'd be hard to shoot flashbacks where Jane wasn't pregnant.

12 Emilia Clarke On ‘Game of Thrones’

In season one of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen got married to Khal Drogo and got pregnant soon after. However, things ended badly both for her new husband and newborn baby at the end of the season (after Dany and Khal finally got closer to each other).

Luckily for Emilia Clarke, the actress who played Daenerys, she didn't have to suffer the fate of her character. She was never pregnant while filming and thankfully, she lives in the real world, which wasn't invented by George Martin (phew!).

11 Melissa Rauch On 'The Big Bang Theory’

Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory was pregnant twice in the show. It's interesting that both times weren't really planned, but after announcing the first pregnancy, Bernie and her husband Howard quickly came to their senses. The second pregnancy was completely by accident, though, because it happened only nine months after their first baby came into this world. For showrunners, this plot twist was also unplanned. They decided to include the second pregnancy because Melissa Rauch, the actress who plays Bernadette, announced her pregnancy.

10 Gillian Anderson On ‘X-Files’

Season two of the cult-favorite series X-Files, showed us alien conspiracy mythology. So when Gillian Anderson revealed that she was pregnant, the showrunners had to decide whether they wanted to add a baby into the plot. Of course, a child would seem to be completely out of place on X-Files, so they used habitual techniques to hide the actress' belly.

However, they still took a chance to use Anderson's pregnancy and added an interesting plot twist. Agent Scully was abducted by the aliens, was absent from one episode (so that the actress could give birth to her child) and was shown in a comatose state in the next episode. Curiously, some people say that this twist was one of the best things that happened during the second season.

9 Marcia Cross On ‘Desperate Housewives’

Throughout most of the third season of Desperate Housewives, Marcia Cross was pregnant with twins. Since it was decided not to include Bree Van de Kamp's pregnancy into the plot, the actress had to hide behind different objects to cover her baby bump with pillows, big bags, and other stuff.

But at some point, showrunners realized that it'd be an interesting plot twist (and it'd also allow them to stop hiding the heavily pregnant Cross), if Bree faked a pregnancy to save her teenage daughter Danielle's image in the eyes of others and raise her out-of-wedlock baby as her own!

8 Ginnifer Goodwin On ‘Once Upon a Time’

The fans of Once Upon a Time might know that the fates of Ginnifer Goodwin and her character Snow White paralleled in a number of ways. First of all, the actress met her current husband Josh Dallas on the set of the show (who actually played the husband of Snow White, Prince Charming). And then, when Goodwin got pregnant, showrunners decided to write pregnancy in the series.

So, almost simultaneously, Snow White gave birth to a son, Prince Neal, in the show, while Goodwin became a happy mother to her son Oliver in real life. She must have been feeling like she was living in a fairy tale!

7 Emilie de Ravin On ‘Lost’

All fans of Lost remember that at the beginning of the series, Claire Littleton was pregnant. She was among the survivors on the island and her pregnancy caused quite a lot of fuss in the show. To name one thing, The Others were after her because... Ah, it's useless to explain plot twists in Lost... If you've seen it, you'll know what I mean.

Emilie de Ravin wasn't really expecting a child while filming Lost, which was probably a good thing since the show demanded so much from their actors. So throughout the first season, the actress had to wear a massive fake baby bump.

It was a cool idea that certainly worked better for the series than if they decided to hide Rauch's baby bump all along.

6 Sarah Wayne Callies On ‘The Walking Dead’

Lori Grimes was one of the most controversial characters on The Walking Dead. Being a pile of contradictions (which was already hard to handle), she'd also constantly find herself in the situations where she needed to be saved. Things got even worse when Lori got pregnant in season three and turned into a complete burden for everyone else.

I must admit that Sarah Wayne Callies played this uneasy woman very well — especially since she wasn't actually pregnant at the time of her character. Some viewers thought that the bump came out of nowhere in the show, but I think the writers did what they could. The plot twist was taken from the comic books, so if you're a fan, you shouldn't be surprised.

5 Jennifer Garner On ‘Alias’

While Jennifer Garner was starring in Alias, she got married to Ben Affleck and announced her pregnancy shortly after it. J.J. Abrams—the creator of the show—decided not to hide her baby bump. They used the well-known techniques and later wrote the pregnancy into the show. So, suddenly, Sydney Bristow became a mother, as well as a spy.

The father of the child on the show was the character played by Garner's ex-boyfriend Michael Vaughn, however, he was missing during most of the pregnancy, because he faked his death (it was a show about spies, remember?).

4 Lucille Ball On ‘I Love Lucy’

In its time, I Love Lucy made history. It was the first series in the history of cinematography, where an actually pregnant woman played a pregnant character. But, as you might imagine, it wasn't that easy — however groundbreaking it was.

At the time, censors were really strict. Lucy and her husband (who, in fact, was played by the actress' real-life husband) couldn't even sleep in one bed together! And, even though it seems strange these days, the characters weren't even allowed to say the word 'pregnant' in the show because it was considered vulgar. Instead, they had to say that "Lucy was expecting."

3 Natalie Dormer On ‘The Tudors’

If you're into history, you certainly liked to watch The Tudors. Even though this TV show wasn't perfect history-wise, it still showed the story of the British king Henry VIII very well.

This man desperately wanted to have a son, but his wife gave birth to a daughter. Instead of trying for a son, the king decided to get rid of her (and to do it, he even rejected papal supremacy, which was unheard of at that time) and marry a younger woman, Anne Boleyn. But it all ended up with a miscarriage, the birth of another daughter (who later became Elizabeth I, aka the Virgin Queen), and Anne's execution.

Natalie Dormer, who ably played Anne Boleyn, was obviously wearing a fake belly on set because she wasn't pregnant IRL.

2 Fran Drescher On ‘The Nanny’

If you watched The Nanny, you'll remember that at the end of the series, when Fran and Max finally got married, the ex-nanny suddenly announced that she was pregnant. This plot twist was so unexpected (and it also seemed unnecessary), so fans thought that it might have been caused by the actress' real pregnancy. But they were wrong; Fran Drescher wasn't pregnant back then and, in fact, she never ended up having children.

Even though pregnancy might have been a natural progression after marriage, it seemed to be rushed. It was actually added by showrunners at the last minute, but it didn't really matter because the show was canceled soon after Fran and Max got together.

1 Katey Sagal On ‘Married… With Children’

When Katey Sagal got pregnant, showrunners of Married... With Children decided to make a plot twist and add pregnancy to the show so that Peg Bundy and their neighbor Marcy would be up the duff at the same time.

This twist added a lot of hilarious moments to the show. However, in real life, the pregnancy ended tragically for Sagal. She gave birth to a stillborn child six weeks before term. To pay respect to the actress, it was decided to make another plot twist. In season six, episode 11, Al Bundy wakes up and it turns out that Peg's and Marcy's pregnancies were just part of a bad dream he was having.

References: Screen Rant, The Hollywood Reporter, Wikipedia, Access Online, Hollywood, Mental Floss