History Main / ConvenientMiscarriage

* In an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', Charlotte Pickles (Angelica's mom) takes an at-home pregnancy test and the test shows a positive result, which gets her and Drew talking about having another baby, although Angelica starts {{angst}}ing about not being the center of her parents' attention anymore. At the very end of the episode, it's revealed that Charlotte's not actually going to have another baby.

** It's never actually made clear if Charlotte did have a miscarriage (or, at the very least, a chemical pregnancy[[note]]Which is basically a very early miscarriage that happens before anything can be seen on an ultrasound, usually occurring around the fourth or fifth week[[/note]]). It's possible that Charlotte was never actually pregnant to begin with -- if that's true, then she could've had a phantom pregnancy[[note]]Which is where a woman exhibits pregnancy-like symptoms when she's not actually pregnant -- it's more common in animals, and in humans, it tends to be more psychological than physical[[/note]] and/or had misread/done her at-home pregnancy test incorrectly[[note]]In the episode, the test turned out blue, and Charlotte claimed that meant she was pregnant -- it's entirely possible that blue actually meant that Charlotte wasn't pregnant or blue meant "inconclusive," or something along those lines[[/note]]. It's also entirely possible that Charlotte simply realized that at-home pregnancy tests aren't always completely accurate because right after doing the test, she made an appointment with her doctor to have an official pregnancy test done.

[[quoteright:240:[[Comicbook/SpiderMan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spider_man_convenient_stillbirth.png]]]]

* Nocturne from ''Comicbook/{{Exiles}}'' who not only lost her child between issues but did any grieving there as well. One issue the father is put into a coma while punching out Galacticus and has to be left behind when the Exiles move on. In the next issue, someone asks her about why she's not showing yet and she informs them that she 'lost it 5 worlds ago and She's glad because what sort of crappy situation is this to bring a child into?'. The baby isn't mentioned again until the father comes out of his coma and the second thing Nocturne says to him is 'I lost the baby' (the first is "You're Alive!" In between, it was strongly implied that she had actually either gotten an abortion or used her powers to perform the abortion herself.

* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'': Betty Ross got hit with this one due to ExecutiveMeddling; writer Creator/PeterDavid had the story of the birth already plotted out, but editorial vetoed the Hulk having kids. He refused to write the miscarriage himself, and a fill-in author had to do the job instead, having Nightmare kill her and Bruce's unborn baby.

* The ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' comic ''Batman: Son of the Demon'' uses the variation. Batman joins up with his WellIntentionedExtremist enemy ComicBook/RasAlGhul, marries his daughter, ComicBook/TaliaAlGhul, and gets her pregnant. Talia decides that to defend her and the baby would hold Batman back from his mission, and fakes the miscarriage; the last we see is their son, in an orphanage, holding the necklace Bruce gave to Talia. This story was [[{{Retcon}} retroactively declared]] an {{Elseworld}} and then {{retcon}}ned right back to being canon years later when Talia presented Bruce with his son [[MeaningfulName Damian]], now 10 years old.
* In an arc of ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'', the title character's sometimes-girlfriend Agent [[ComicBook/{{Agent 13}} Sharon Carter]] of ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} discovered that she was pregnant. She was then taken captive by ComicBook/RedSkull and, after a fight, was found stabbed in the abdomen. The next issue revealed that she had done it to herself to keep her baby away from the Skull. No one blames her. (It's hinted that Red Skull was going to use her baby as his new body.)

* In the American film adaptation of ''Literature/TheRing'', Anna Morgan wanted to have a child, but she kept miscarrying for years. She eventually resorted to adopting a child, but it happened to be [[CreepyChild Samara Morgan]], who drove her and her husband insane with her visions.

* The ''Series/{{Friends}}'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10272341/1/Fix-You Fix You]]" is set in an AU where Ross stayed with Emily and only returned to New York after three years in the run-up to Monica and Chandler's wedding. After events lead to Rachel [[InSpiteOfANail becoming pregnant with Emma]], following Emma's birth Rachel reads some letters Ross sent her for her past birthdays that she never opened before and learns that Emily became pregnant in their second year of marriage, but she then had a miscarriage and her entire family blamed Ross for everything that went wrong, to the extent that even Ross felt like he just ended up hurting the people he was with. After reading the letters, Rachel assures Ross that he did his best and the only person at fault is Emily for being a bitch after Ross gave up so much to try and make the marriage work, ending by reaffirming that Ross is a good person who deserves to be happy.

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[[quoteright:295:[[Webcomic/CtrlAltDel https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miscarriage_5542.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:295:They're at a [[StealthPun loss]] for words after what just happened.]]

[[caption-width-right:295:They're at a loss for words after what just happened.]]

* Clare on ''Series/{{Degrassi}}''. She became pregnant in the middle of her senior year and intended to keep the baby. But obviously the writers weren't going to have their main character [[GraduateFromTheStory graduate (and therefore leave the show)]] while still pregnant, so she had a late-term miscarriage shortly before graduation. In-universe, Clare was absolutely devastated, but the miscarriage did give her an optimistic ending where her future was looking brighter than ever.

* Fanfic/KhaosOmega has only used this in one story, the second of three 'Rainbow 18' stories, as part of the actual plot; prostitute-turned-Rainbow Angel Roxanne Mazaki is forced to miscarry twice, with the second triggering an energy beacon that leads Jet to her. 'Delta Wyvern', the third of the trio, makes the most prominent reference to this as the reason its own main prostitute-turned-Rainbow Angel character, Jasmine Levesque, acquires an XQ device enabling her to avoid what led to Roxanne's miscarriages.

* [[BitchInSheepsClothing Sae]] - the malicious ''frenemy'' of the leading female in highschool drama ''Manga/PeachGirl'' - falls pregnant [[spoiler:only after she conveniently gets attacked. It turns out her pregnancy was a phantom one.]]

* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': Facing an unexpected pregnancy, and having already broken up with the father of the baby, the main character wrestles with how she's going to balance motherhood with her demanding job as a Boston homicide detective. As it turns out, she doesn't need to ...

* On ''Series/{{Revenge}}'', Charlotte's poorly conceived, entirely unnecessary pregnancy was written out within moments of her first appearance in the next season. Seemed blatant that the writers realized what a terrible idea this was and decided to backpedal.
* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'' - facing an unexpected pregnancy, and having already broken up with the father of the baby, the main character wrestled with how she was going to balance motherhood with her demanding job as a Boston homicide detective. As it turns out, she didn't need to ...

* Subversion in "Series/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel". Joel's season 3 and 4 girlfriend, Mei is revealed pregnant in season 4. In episode 1 of Season 5, she tells Joel she's had an abortion and is moving to Chicago. Not the only HandWave to open the season.

* Subversion in "Series/{{TheMarvelousMrsMaisel}}". Joel's season 3 and 4 girlfriend, Mei is revealed pregnant in season 4. In episode 1 of Season 5, she tells Joel she's had an abortion and is moving to Chicago. Not the only HandWave to open the season.

* In ''Series/UpstairsDownstairs'', Sarah's baby is stillborn, and Hazel has an early miscarriage. This is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the setting: infant mortality was much higher in 1909 and 1914. Neither case was coverup for a pregnant actress.

* Somewhat subverted on ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'', since [[spoiler:Adrian and Ben]] wanted their daughter and were devastated when she was stillborn. But it was still pretty convenient for the writers.
* In season four of ''Series/UglyBetty'', [[spoiler:Hilda]] had one of these only a few episodes after discovering her pregnancy. Unlike most examples, however, she does not lose the baby through a traumatic fall down the staircase; instead, she goes in for an ultrasound and learns that the baby died in-utero when the technician can't detect a heartbeat.
* You could see this coming a mile away for Blair in ''Series/GossipGirl''. Hardly anyone even thought the baby might survive.
* In season five of ''Series/{{Stromberg}}'', Jennifer gets pregnant. Stromberg would have been the father. She pondered the idea of abortion and then, after deciding to have the child, she miscarries.
* Clare on ''Series/{{Degrassi}}''. She became pregnant in the middle of her senior year and intended to keep the baby. But obviously the writers weren't going to have their main character [[GraduateFromTheStory graduate (and therefore leave the show)]] while still pregnant, so she had a late-term miscarriage shortly before graduation. In-universe, Clare was absolutely devastated, but the miscarriage did give her an optimistic ending where her future was looking brighter than ever.
* On ''Series/OneLifeToLive'', following fights with their respective partners, a despondent and drunken Will and Jessica had sex, resulting in pregnancy. After the requisite waffling over having an abortion, marrying her boyfriend (who graciously offered to step up and "do the right thing" even though he wasn't the father), or placing the baby for adoption, Jessica ultimately decided to keep and raise the baby herself. In what has to be one of the most ridiculous examples of this trope, she was ''hit by a car as she was going into labor'' (she had gone for a walk to escape the chaos of her baby shower), thus eliminating any chance of the show handling this realistically.
** From the same show, a near-term Blair getting into a car accident, killing her and Patrick's baby, just after each of their respective partners had accepted the baby's existence and the changes it would bring to their lives. For [[RuleOfDrama bonus angst]], the driver at fault was Blair's cousin, who was driving drunk.
* Completely inverted in ''Series/DowntonAbbey'', when Lady Cora's stunningly convenient, deus ex machina-style pregnancy ends in an inconvenient miscarriage.
* In ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'', one episode involved a couple living in an apartment above a tenant who may or may not be a voodoo priest. The wife reveals to her husband that she's pregnant, only for her to have a miscarriage after falling off a ladder. The wife blames the neighbor as part of his supposed campaign of bad luck on the couple after she accused him of thievery. [[spoiler:The man commits suicide, and it turns out the wife was lying the whole time just so she could drive the man out of the apartment building. Her husband, disgusted, realizes she was never pregnant and leaves.]]
* On ''Series/{{Sisters}}'', second-oldest sister Teddy seduced her ex-husband shortly before he was due to marry youngest sister Frankie. Sure enough, she got pregnant. And, once the hoopla of the situation died down, she lost the baby.
* On ''Series/{{Revenge}}'', Charlotte's poorly conceived, entirely unnecessary pregnancy was written out within moments of her first appearance in the next season. Seemed blatant that the writers realized what a terrible idea this was and decided to backpedal.
* Used in ''Series/SavingHope''. Maggie gets pregnant by Gavin, the two of them fight a lot and don't seem particularly well suited to having a baby. When they eventually come to accept the pregnancy, Maggie miscarries.
* ''Series/TheLAComplex'': Raquel gets pregnant by either Connor or Gary (it's left ambiguous.) She decides to pursue a relationship with Connor and is just about to tell him about the pregnancy when she miscarries while he is on a date with another woman (Connor's other relationship is a publicity stunt, but still.)
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': Ollie thinks this happened to a girl he knocked up several years before the start of the show; he even comments (though visibly upset) on how lucky he was to dodge the baby bullet. In actuality, Moira paid the girl $2 million to lie about losing the baby, move away, and never contact Ollie again.
* ''Series/OrphanBlack'': Gracie losing Helena and Henrik's baby is inconvenient for Gracie (even though she didn't want the pregnancy, it's the only reason her family still has use for her), but an excellent plot point as it will force her away from the Proletheans and to Art (and maybe the rest of clone club.)
* ''Series/LadyDynamite'': To generate some sympathy after accidentally dressing an African child militia in Maria tour shirts, Bruce takes over her Twitter account with a made-up story of her losing her baby while riding horseback.
* ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'': Kelly became pregnant with her and Brandon's child, and after a full episode of coming to terms with it, she lost the baby. Conversely, Kelly's actress, Creator/JennieGarth, however, was [[RealLife actually]] pregnant with her first child around the same time (which was [[HideYourPregnancy hidden from the audience]]).
* For a series so heavily concerned with childbirth and the ways it affects people's lives, and tending towards neat endings, ''Series/CallTheMidwife'' could be forgiven for employing this a lot more but rarely does. One plot line saw a young man's dilemma of choosing between marrying his pregnant girlfriend or going to university effectively solved by her miscarrying.
* ''Series/ChicagoMed'': April gets pregnant with her relatively new boyfriend Tate's baby. The two quickly become engaged and seem happy to start their family, but have constant fights about whether or not April should be working and how her TB medications affect the baby. Ultimately, April goes for an ultrasound and there is no fetal heartbeat. She and Tate are both crushed and eventually break up since Tate can't get over the idea that her work contributed to the miscarriage and he never wanted a working wife anyway.
* ''Series/HandOfGod'': After deciding not to have an abortion and planning on giving her baby up for adoption instead, Alicia suffers a miscarriage after accidentally being shot.
* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': Mary Cooper gets pregnant again in season 2 episode "Albert Einstein and the Story of Another Mary". But since this show is a prequel to ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', which [[DoomedByCanon established that she only has three kids]], she obviously wasn't going to have it and ended up miscarrying.

* On ''Series/{{Webster}}'', Catherine discovered she was pregnant and lost the baby... in the same episode. Doubly-jarring, given how lighthearted Webster ''usually'' was.
* In ''Series/RescueMe'', Tommy gets his dead cousin's wife Sheila pregnant. Right around the time Tommy realizes he has to quit drinking to win his real family back, Sheila handily has a miscarriage; now that her baby is out of the way, Tommy can go live a happy life with his real wife and kids. Wait, what?
* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'' - facing an unexpected pregnancy, and having already broken up with the father of the baby, the main character wrestled with how she was going to balance motherhood with her demanding job as a Boston homicide detective. As it turns out, she didn't need to ...
* A strange example ''Series/{{Nashville}}'': Starlet Juliette Barnes has an unexpected pregnancy (that coincided with the real-life actress's pregnancy) and carries it to term. She thought the baby was a one-night stand but the father was actually her boyfriend Avery. Several seasons later, up-and-comer Scarlett becomes estranged from long-time boyfriend Gunnar and gets pregnant. This time the baby is not Gunnar's but her one-night stand's, and this time she miscarries later on.

* ''Series/NYPDBlue'': Commonly used throughout the series. Diane miscarries her child with Bobby. Danny has a crisis when he gets his girlfriend pregnant, but she has a miscarriage by the end of the episode. Baldwin and ADA Haywood have a multi-episode arc about whether they should have their baby or have an abortion, only for a miscarriage to render their indecision moot.
* Subverted on ''Series/ThirdWatch'' with Faith. While she claims that she had a miscarriage to her husband, she really had an abortion because she felt that they couldn't afford another kid.
* Kirsty did this on ''Series/HomeAndAway'': first she lied she was pregnant, then to weasel out of it she lied she miscarried, and then she found she was having a baby for real, and then she miscarried for real. (Doubly convenient since she needed a kidney transplant but couldn't bring herself to have an abortion.) Several years later (having had a full-term pregnancy in the meantime), it happened to her ''again'': She pretended to try for a baby but kept taking the pill, admitted she didn't want a baby, got pregnant anyway, considered an abortion but realised she wanted the baby, then had a miscarriage.
** An awkward case with Sam Holden: Having just undergone a FaceHeelTurn and killed a criminal who was blackmailing her, she conveniently discovered she was pregnant just as her husband Jack was about to report her to the police, then suffered a convenient miscarriage during an argument. Not long after [[DeathOfTheHypotenuse she committed suicide]] in a failed attempt to frame [[DieForOurShip Jack and Martha]].

* ''Series/CoronationStreet'' actually inverted the subversion. In the 1980s, the soap received a certain amount of controversy by featuring UK soap's first abortion storyline, when Susan Barlow chose to get rid of her baby rather than be trapped in her marriage to Mike Baldwin. Nearly ''fourteen years later'', this was {{retcon}}ned to reveal she had actually lied about having an abortion and had been bringing up a son that neither Mike nor Susan's father Ken knew about.

* ''Series/TheNanny'' appeared to have this late in the series, but [[spoiler:it turned out Fran was never actually even pregnant; her pregnancy test had been a false positive. Not a convenient example, either, as Fran was anxious to have a baby and devastated by the news. She later got pregnant for real and had twins.]]
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Packed to the Rafters}}''. When Rachel finds out she's pregnant by her drug-addicted ex-boyfriend, she has an abortion rather than have his baby, a decision her ScrewPolitenessImASenior grandfather gives her an awkward lecture about.
* Margaret in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'' gets beaten so severely by her husband (in the first episode) that she loses her baby. This isn't really to avoid her having children (she already had two); it's probably more so that Nucky had an incentive to order a hit on Hans, and so that [[spoiler:she and Nucky could get to a sexual relationship that much quicker]].
* Megan Draper in ''Series/MadMen'', though this is only revealed after the miscarriage happens. Nonetheless, she does mention that she felt extremely relieved not to have to make a decision about the pregnancy.
* On ''Series/AsTheWorldTurns'', teenager Liberty Ciccone, herself the product of a teen pregnancy, becomes pregnant. After waffling for several months over getting an abortion, raising the child herself, giving the child up for adoption, or letting her mother raise the baby, Liberty has decided to get an abortion, probably. Maybe. Anyway, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext then she gets tackled by an errant football player]] and has a miscarriage.
* ''Series/CSIMiami'' has a subversion of this. A man's second wife gets pregnant and he does not want to go through the process of raising a kid. He sabotages her car and hires some goons to have her carjacked with the intent that this causes a Convenient Miscarriage and his life goes back to 'normal'. The carjackers end up beating the wife almost to death which gets massive attention from the police. [[spoiler:The mother and baby live.]]
* ''Series/DirtySexyMoney'' had this with Karen since the show had been cancelled and it gave Karen and Nick a happy ending.
* On ''Series/GeneralHospital'', Holly was pregnant by Luke, whom she mistakenly thought was dead. His best friend, Robert, married her to keep her from being deported. She miscarried when picking up an antique (and heavy) wooden cradle for the baby. Irony noted.

* ''Series/TheRanch'': Discussed and deconstructed. Colt gets Heather pregnant at a ''really'' bad time, but they agree to keep the baby and look forward to being parents. However, she miscarries, and both grieve over the loss but also admit to being kind of relieved, as it solves a lot of problems for them both. They both feel guilty for considering the miscarriage convenient, and while they're both sad, they're not sure if they're sad ''enough''. Heather ultimately concludes that it doesn't matter; regardless of whether they wanted the baby or not, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and now they can move on with their lives.
-->'''Colt:''' Hey, Heather? Do you think we would've been good parents?\\
''[Long pause as she considers.]''\\
'''Heather:''' [[BluntNo Fuck no]]! ''[She exits.]''
* ''Series/TheNeighborhood'': The end of the third season into the beginning of the fourth deals with Dave and Gemma wanting another child and Gemma manages to become pregnant. A few episodes in, she ends up miscarrying the child. To say that she and Dave are devastated would be an understatement.

* Martha Kent in ''Series/{{Smallville}}''.
** Later, Lana. [[spoiler:[[ThePlan She was never pregnant in the first place]].]]

* Teresa in ''Series/TheOC'' uses the variation; she doesn't miscarry but claims she did so that Ryan will go back to the O.C.
* Subverted in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. JD goes from California to Tacoma to see Kim's ultrasound, only to leave when she tells him she's miscarried; the episode closes with her gynecologist telling her she has a healthy baby boy. This ends up becoming very important later on in the season's main plot.
* Carrie in ''Series/TheKingOfQueens'' was pregnant for exactly one episode, until the series finale where she got pregnant again and this time had a baby without incident.

* Happens to Anthony [=LaPaglia's=] character's girlfriend after she's taken hostage in ''Series/WithoutATrace'' - although there were signs the pregnancy was already in trouble, as was the relationship since she leaves soon after.

* In the recent short-lived ''Series/BionicWoman'' remake, the same car accident that leads to Jamie becoming bionic also causes her to miscarry. The offhandedness of it has led to some fairly… [[{{squick}} interesting]] [=WMGs=].

* An episode of ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' before Gloria and Mike successfully had a baby featured Gloria finding out she was pregnant and then losing the baby almost immediately afterward. Interestingly, in the spinoff ''Series/{{Maude}}'', the title character did have an abortion. The episode ended with her simply making the decision with no abortion scene, but the episode was still incredibly controversial.
* Kitty in ''Series/BrothersAndSisters'', although she never considered an abortion, miscarried her pregnancy very early, resulting in her then-fiancé not having to deal with being a Republican presidential candidate expecting out of wedlock.

* Creator/KateySagal's [[RealLifeWritesThePlot real-life pregnancy was written into a season]] of ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'', but the baby was stillborn in a third-term miscarriage. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot To avoid the trauma of an infant on-set so soon after her loss]], Peg's pregnancy was made AllJustADream, and Sagal's subsequent pregnancies had Peg chasing after her parents, and thus not on-screen, to prevent it happening again.
* Sarah Hendrickson in ''Series/BigLove''.
* [[spoiler:Caprica-Six and Saul Tigh]] in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' [[spoiler:with their son (Wil)Liam, possibly due to Tigh switching affections from Six back to his real wife Ellen. Apparently, Cylons need love to breed).]]

* For a series so heavily concerned with childbirth and the ways it affects people's lives, and tending towards neat endings, ''Series/CallTheMidwife'' could be forgiven for employing this a lot more but in fact, it indulges seldom. However, one plot line saw a young man's university-place/marrying-his-knocked-up-girlfriend effectively solved by her miscarrying.

** ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'' may have caused Sue to miscarry [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy Tommy's baby]]. It's ambiguous whether Sue was actually pregnant or her period was just late.