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Better Than I Even Imagined

By Michelle Tauber

Originally posted Thursday April 12, 2007 12:00 PM EDT

"From the first moment Tom was changing diapers – he's been totally hands-on," Cross says of her husband. Photo by: Andrew Shawaf / Pacific coast news

During the first part of her pregnancy – which was not written into Housewives – "I was horribly nauseous," says Cross. Then around the 26-week mark in late December she hit a more serious snag. "I went to the doctor's office, and I'd been having contractions and didn't know it," she says. "I thought I was this Amazon woman, and that bed rest was never going to happen to me."

But it did, throwing a wrench into her Housewives plot line, which Cherry quickly rejiggered so that crucial episodes could be filmed at Cross's home. (Bree suffered a fall on the show and was bedridden.) Says Cherry: "It ultimately worked because Marcia was such a good sport about it."

She brought the same spirit to her nine weeks of bed rest. "Not a day went by that she didn't have good humor," says Mahoney. For her part, "I thought, 'I might as well learn something,'" says Cross. "So I got some books on tape – ancient Greek civilization, something on the symphony, [George Eliot's] Middlemarch." But as her belly grew, so did her discomfort. "I couldn't breathe really well, and I'd be so tired just talking on the phone," she says. "It was a very isolating time."