The Big Bang Theory Behind-The-Scenes Moment That Led To Bernadette’s Pregnancy

Sometimes sitcoms lean on pregnancy storylines as a crutch when they’re not quite sure where else to take characters, but to be fair to “The Big Bang Theory,” the show handled two of its pregnancy storylines quite well. (One, which involved Kaley Cuoco’s Penny, wasn’t as successful — and even Cuoco herself agrees.) According to the show’s creative team, though, the idea that Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, played by Melissa Rauch, would suddenly discover she and her husband Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) are having a baby came up quite organically.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter after the episode “The Valentino Submergence” aired, showrunner and executive producer Steve Molaro spoke to the outlet about Bernadette’s revelation. In the episode — which is set during Valentine’s Day — Bernadette and Howard are about to have a romantic evening in their hot tub when they discover a baby rabbit trapped in the tub and rescue it, at which point Bernadette quietly reveals, just to the bunny, that she’s pregnant. According to Molaro, he joked about doing this — and then it ended up in the episode.

“We’ve touched on the idea of Bernadette and Howard and children here and there but we didn’t really have plans to pull the trigger at any point,” Molaro recalled. “It wasn’t even part of the outline for the episode. We were writing it and getting toward the end of the story and I guess maternity was in the air because Bernadette was holding this wrapped-up bunny and they named it, and we were writing the final page of that storyline. Half-kidding, I said, ‘What if Bernadette tells the rabbit, ‘We’ll find another time to tell him I’m pregnant.’ The room had such a strong, positive reaction to it. We thought it seemed like an organic moment and we decided to put it in. Because there was no plan for it, it felt very exciting to us when we did it; like it was a thing that should happen and maybe this was the time to do it. I handed [co-creator] Chuck Lorre the draft of the script and didn’t tell him it was in there. He got to the end and thought, ‘Wow, OK sure, that totally makes sense. Let’s do it.'”

According to Jessica Radloff’s 2022 book “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” both Simon Helberg and Melissa Rauch were concerned about the idea of Howard and Bernadette having a baby — in that they were concerned it would ruin the show’s dynamic — but thanks in large part to writer Maria Ferrari, the writers as a whole were able to come up with a phenomenal (and relatable) storyline in which a very pregnant Bernadette fretted about not having a “maternal” instinct. In the season 10 episode “The Dependence Transcendence,” Bernadette confesses to her and Howard’s best friend Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) that she’s worried she won’t be a good mother, and both Rauch and Nayyar felt this was incredibly real and raw.

“There was such raw honesty in everything that she put into Bernadette,” Rauch said of Ferrari, recalling a time she went to shop for her real life pregnancy and got overwhelmed by everything she’d need to know. “I was on the verge of sheer panic, of ‘How will I be able to figure all of this out?!’ but then I was thinking about what Bernadette had gone through — and granted, I know it’s fictionalized, but seeing how in the end none of it mattered and Bernadette was an amazing mother, was comforting,” Rauch recalled. “You find your way with your own children, so that was a lesson for me as a mom and something I took from the show.”

“I really loved the non-cliché ways in which we really approached relationships and topics, like Bernadette saying, ‘I don’t have a maternal instinct,'” Nayyar said of the way “The Big Bang Theory” approached parenthood. “Viewers who related to this moment felt, Oh, I’m not crazy. Our harshest voice is our own, so when we realize there are people out there who are embarrassed to admit that they might suck at being a parent, it’s like, ‘All right, I’m not alone.’ That’s why I love the show.”

After Bernadette gives birth to her and Howard’s on-screen daughter Halley (named for the comet), the show kept her motherhood journey incredibly relatable — by completely overhauling Bernadette’s look. According to Rauch and costume designer (and producer) Mary T. Quigley, they totally reconsidered Bernadette’s tiny skirts and cardigans, realizing that no new mom would return to such form-fitting outfits right after having a baby — and the show also showed Bernadette really struggle with a newborn, providing yet another honest and real storyline for the character.

“After Bernadette gave birth, Mary and I talked a lot about Bernadette’s wardrobe,” Rauch said, even saying the experience made it easier for her to work on the show as a new mom. “I loved the episode when Bernadette was in that purple sweatshirt, thinking what the heck is going on postpartum. It started a conversation because we didn’t want to set an unrealistic example of getting back to your pre-mother self right away. I thought it would be doing a disservice to the mothers who watch the show to all the sudden have me back in the tights and fitted cardigans […] We wanted it to feel real, to mirror everything Bernadette was going through and the struggles she was facing as a new mom. […] And then when I had my own daughter and was breastfeeding during rehearsals and tapings, I remember thinking getting into those tight dresses and cardigans would have been hell for me, so I was very happy to have this new style for Bernadette.”

“It was really important to me and her to show, no, you’re not a size zero a week after you have a baby,” Quigley agreed. “I said, ‘How about we leave her like this? She doesn’t need to get back to the sweaters and the dresses because she’s progressed anyway. She’s a mother.’ She still looked great, but we didn’t want to always make her look perfect.” Rauch, for her part, loved it: “It was real. That’s what you look like.”

“The Big Bang Theory” is streaming on Max now.