The most awkward part about it for me was pretending to be happy about a pregnancy. I actually hate the idea of having children. This goes back pretty far in my life. As a kid, I always chose Pound Puppies over Cabbage Patch Dolls. Sure, there was a time when I dreamed of being married, having a Chevy Lumina and driving the kids to church every Sunday morning. But at that time, my goals shifted daily from becoming a veterinarian, to a pop star, a dog, and a litany of other creatures or occupations. Even at that early age, parent was never high on my list.

So imagine how awkward it was for me to pretend to be elated about a pregnancy even just in the initial audition process. My partner was the one reading the lines of my “husband” during my self-tape. “Yes! Yes I’m pregnant!” I felt that the simple act of pretending that it was a good thing would send him the wrong message. Or, even worse, result in some sort of accidental manifestation. If I performed too well, would he get the wrong impression?

Once we got through the self-taping, an awkward feeling loomed around for a couple of hours. I even made some jokes about how hard it was to pretend I was happy about that, just to reassure him that it wasn’t real and that I was, in fact, just acting. He’s like me in that he sees children as a burden. He recently replied to the sounds of a crying baby in another apartment in our building by saying, “I hate kids so much that I’d be perfectly happy if there were no more generations of humans.” I fell more in love with him at that moment. I don’t HATE children. I just don’t want to be in charge of any of them. I like having dogs. I can leave them alone for hours at a time, I don’t have to sacrifice my body for them, and they’ll never get old enough to resent me or ask me for money.

The job was made even more difficult by the fact that my costar felt the same way. I’m not sure if he and his wife share the exact sentiments as my partner and I, but it was made very clear from the get go that both of us were challenged by the roles of people happy about a baby entering into their lives. So we decided to use what I now call The Conan Method: Utilize the happiness that you’re feeling about working with a long-time hero and project it into the happiness of having a pretend baby with someone you’ve just met.

This method worked, apparently, because people are still saying, “wow, I can’t believe you were so happy about having a baby.”