Betty did think that she was pregnant for a few moments in the “Be-Shure” episode from Ugly Betty season four, but this was all just a misunderstanding.
Ugly Betty ran for four seasons before the show was cancelled in 2010, and it can be difficult to keep all the details about the show straight so many years down the line.
Betty Suarez never fell pregnant on the series, but she did have a serious pregnancy scare in the fourth season of the show (around the same time that a real-life baby boom was happening behind the scenes).
Ugly Betty’s television run
Silvio Horta was certainly not the only aspiring creator to take inspiration from Fernando Gaitán’s Colombian telenovela “Yo soy Betty, la fea”, when he first pitched the idea for Ugly Betty to the ABC executives in 2006.
But no one can deny that this American version of the series has left behind a lasting legacy even decades after its final episode aired.
Ugly Betty aired a total of 85 episodes in its four seasons, until ABC decided not to renew the show in 2010. After this, the series was eventually sold for syndication, and it has now found a whole new audience in the streaming age.
All about the Ugly Betty pregnancy scare
Since Ugly Betty aired its series finale episode more than a decade ago, it can often be difficult to remember the details of the show’s telenovela-inspired storylines all these years later.
When it comes to pregnancies, things become even more complicated though.
Not only were pregnancies or false pregnancies often at the heart of Ugly Betty’s multi-layered narrative, but at the time of filming, there were so many expectant mothers on the set that news outlets and gossip blogs often referred to it as a baby-boom.
And, although the show’s titular character, Betty Suarez (played by America Ferrera), never actually ended up getting pregnant on the series, there was an entire episode of the show centered on her pregnancy scare.
During Ugly Betty’s fourth season’s Christmas episode, which was titled “Be-Shure” and first aired on December 11, 2009, Betty and Hilda both end up thinking that they were pregnant after a mix-up with their pregnancy tests.
When the episode first starts out, Betty is feeling a little queasy, but things do not get serious until an unsuspecting passenger offers Betty a seat on the bus after mistakenly assuming that she is pregnant.
Elsewhere, Hilda also realizes that she may be pregnant and picks up the same pregnancy test as Betty, at the same pharmacy, without realizing that her sister was also there on the same mission.
Later, it is revealed that only one of the Suarez-sisters is pregnant – and that sister is Hilda (portrayed by Ana Ortiz), not Betty.
Ana Ortiz was actually pregnant while filming Ugly Betty
Ana Ortiz announced in January 2009 that she was expecting her first child with her husband, Noah Lebenzon, and the baby was born later that year in July.
This real-life pregnancy happened way before the “Be-Shure” episode was filmed, but Ortiz and the Ugly Betty costume designer, Patricia Field, had to “work miracles” to find ways to hide her growing baby bump in the first few episodes of season four.
If you re-watch the series, you may even be able to spot the numerous bowls of popcorn and the lack of profile shots in many of Hilda’s season four scenes.
America Ferrera is a mother in real life
Although Betty was never pregnant in Ugly Betty, Ferrera has since welcomed two children into the world – a son in 2018, and then a daughter in 2020.
A few of the old Ugly Betty cast members actually attended Ferrera’s first baby shower, which was held just before her son’s birth in 2018.
This includes Ortiz and Mark Indelicato (who played Betty’s nephew Justin on the series) and many of Ferrera’s new Superstore co-stars.
All about the rest of the Ugly Betty baby boom
Ortiz’s on-screen pregnancy may have followed closely behind her real-life pregnancy, but she is not the only member of the Ugly Betty cast who had baby fever.
In fact, avid fans may remember that Christina, the talented Mode seamstress, had a storyline where she was a surrogate for Wilhelmina.
Well, it turns out that life imitated art as the actress who played Christina, Ashley Jensen, also confirmed that she was pregnant in real-life in July of 2009.
Of course, Rebecca Romjin (who played Alexis Meade), was pregnant with twins around the same time. Moreover, Becki Newton, who played Amanda on the show, welcomed her first child just months after the series stopped airing in 2010.
