'Virgin River' Fans Have Begun to Think Charmaine Will Be Pregnant Forever — What Is Going On?

The Gist:

• The character of Charmaine from Virgin River has been pregnant since Season 1.
• Fans of the show have questioned the length of her pregnancy in hilarious social media posts.
• The writers finally had Charmaine give birth in the second half of Season 5.

Timelines in television shows are a funny thing. Sometimes there are easy ways to mark the passage of time, such as moving from grade to grade in school. Other times you're left wandering in the dark. Shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Saved by the Bell famously added summer seasons to their shows, which really messed everyone up. Beyond showing characters dramatically flipping through a calendar, viewers are often left confused as to how much time has gone by in their favorite shows.

In Netflix's Virgin River, one character named Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) is pregnant which is a pretty classic plot device. If all goes well, we pretty much know it's been nine months on the show even if it's only been a few weeks for the viewers. However, Virgin River is really getting a lot of mileage out of Charmaine's pregnancy. How long has she been pregnant? Fans are beginning to think it may never end.

Charmaine's pregnancy was revealed at the end of Season 1, and the circumstances surrounding it were less than ideal. She and Jack (Martin Henderson) were sort of dating when Charmaine shared with him that she was pregnant with his baby. Because Charmaine felt like this was her last opportunity to have children, she informed Jack that she planned on keeping the baby.

"I will support you and the baby, you know that," he told her, but Jack was already in love with Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge).

One baby became two as Charmaine learned she was pregnant with twins. And if that plot twist wasn't enough, Jack was not the father. It's not until Season 4 that we learn Calvin (David Cubitt) is the father. We were previously under the impression that Calvin was dead. Obviously, that wasn't the case. The writers had fun with Charmaine in Part 1 of Season 5 when she said, " I feel like I've been pregnant for years." It's true!

Fans of the show are hilariously fed up with Charmaine's forever pregnancy.

"Virgin River, where they find someone's biological father in an episode, but Charmaine has been pregnant for five seasons," tweeted Mandy Collins.

More than one person pointed out that for someone pregnant with twins, she's barely showing. Several folks dropped the classic, "It's been 84 years," gif from Titanic.

Thankfully, the long pregnant day's journey into birth night finally happened in the second half of Season 5.

"As we were shooting Season 5 and Season 4 came out, people started to catch up on the very slow timeline of the series," said showrunner Patrick Sean Smith to Entertainment Weekly. Unable to put it off any longer, because seriously it was getting ridiculous, Patrick and the writers began figuring out when in Season 5 the Virgin River birth would finally happen.

"I tried for Part 1, but it felt too soon and we didn't have the real estate for it," Patrick said. "But it also felt like a great holiday gift to the fans to be like, 'And Charmaine has finally had a baby after four seasons.'"

There is probably no one more excited than Lauren Hammersley, who plays Charmaine. She even made her own very funny joke on Instagram via her bio. "Second longest pregnant woman on television," it reads. All of Season 5 is currently streaming on Netflix, so check out the much-awaited birth.