Melissa Rauch is well known for playing the squeaky-voiced Bernadette on CBS' The Big Bang Theory. Even now with a lead role on Night Court, fans can't help but associate the actress with her breakout part.
After all, Rauch has shared a few real-life milestones with Bernadette, including her pregnancy. The latter notably got pregnant twice during the 12-season run of the show. One of which coincided with the former's actual pregnancy.
At that time, Rauch announced the news in an essay for Glamour. But instead of focusing on her excitement about it, the actress shed light on her past miscarriage, admitting: "During the time when I was grieving over my pregnancy loss or struggling with fertility issues, every joyful, expectant baby announcement felt like a tiny stab in the heart."
Explaining her decision to open up about her miscarriage which she initially blamed herself for, the Kath & Kim alum said that she "personally just wanted to express what I've experienced in the hopes that it could—in some small way—help someone going through a similar pain." Here's a closer look at Rauch's journey into motherhood.
Bernadette's Second Pregnancy Coincided With Melissa Rauch's First Pregnancy
Rauch was actually pregnant with her first child when Bernadette got pregnant the second time. "Melissa is expecting her first child.
She is extremely overjoyed, but if she's being honest, due to the fact that she had a miscarriage the last time she was pregnant, she's pretty much terrified at the moment that it will happen again," read the former's official statement, which she later quoted in her Glamour essay as the only announcement that didn't make her feel like a complete fraud.
It went on to say: "She feels weird even announcing this at all, and would rather wait until her child heads off to college to tell anyone, but she figures she should probably share this news before someone sees her waddling around with her midsection protruding and announces it first."
Rauch explained that the reason she felt "weird" back then was that "when I thought about having to share the news about expecting this baby, all I could think about was another woman mourning over her loss as I did, worried she would never get pregnant again, and reading about my little bundle on the way." She noted that "it felt a bit disingenuous to not also share the struggle it took for me to get here."
What Melissa Rauch Has Said About Her Miscarriage
Rauch confessed to feeling some "guilt" over her miscarriage. "Miscarriage, by the way, deserves to be ranked as one of the worst, most blame-inducing medical terms ever," she wrote. "To me, it immediately conjures up an implication that it was the woman's fault, like she somehow 'mishandled the carrying of this baby.'"
She added: "Eff that so hard, right in its patriarchal nut sack. It's not that a better name would make it less awful to go through. But for a while, my husband and I just started saying to each other—without any judgment or acrimony to the baby, of course—that the baby 'bailed' instead."
The Bronze star admitted that "even the perversely stupid medical term involved felt like an endorsement for the blame game, it was hard for me not to take the bait." She then advised her fans: "If you're doing that to yourself, please take these words in (as I also reminded myself many times): You did nothing wrong." She also shared tips on how to overcome what she called, "one of the most profound sorrows I have ever felt in my life."
"As much as I wanted to 'move on' and gain some sense of control over what happened by beating myself up, I came to understand that thoughts like that have no productive place in grief," she stated in her essay. "Our pain is something to be worked through until it isn't anymore. So on my better days, rather than be a big jerk to myself, I just started saying: It is OK to not be OK right now."
What Melissa Rauch Has Said About Being A Mom Of Two
Rauch — who's been married to producer/screenwriter Winston Beigel since 2007 — said that being a mother is the "most fulfilling role." In an interview with People in January 2023, she said: "Honestly, I would say that being the mother to my two kids [Sadie,5, and Brooks, 3,] is the best role ever and it's the most fulfilling."
But back in 2021, she told Fansided that the "biggest struggle" in being a mom "is that sleep is hard to come by, but the upside is the sleep I do get is not taken for granted!" Speaking of which, Rauch once told Cafe Mom (per Screen Rant) that she loved how The Big Bang Theory emphasized the challenges of motherhood in Bernadette's storyline. "I thought that Big Bang did such a wonderful job with the Bernadette motherhood storyline," she said.
"Starting with just her struggle not knowing if she wanted to be a mom, when she was pregnant if she would be a good mom, had those maternal instincts," she continued. "And then the push and pull of loving her job and knowing that she was going to go back to it and also the struggle of knowing she had this family at home that her heart was with. And I love that it just opened up the conversation. Because, as every human being is different, every mom is different. There's no one size fits all motherhood."
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