Absence

One

For most participants, the 5 days you spend completely isolated in a hotel room before entering the Big Brother mansion are the worst. And it's designed that way. To make a big shock on each of them. No leaving your room. No Internet. No TV. Windows have shutters; you can't even look to the outside. Food comes at predetermined hours, and is left in a tray on the floor by a PA who is not allowed to talk with the participants.

But there are no cameras in the room, and that's the trade-off the architects of the show want the participants to internally realize: it's definitely worth living 24/7 monitored by cameras following your every move in order to have company. Loneliness weighs more than dependence. We are not meant to live alone.

However, Maria wasn't alone. She was 26 weeks pregnant.

It was one of those ideas that are so obvious you don't even understand why no one had done it before. Big Brother was on the air for about 21 years, and TV hates maturity - it doesn't make you wise; it makes you old. The show had been in decline for years, and with every trick they'd throw in to make it appealing - former champs returning, fake cast members, crazy new rules...- nothing would be enough to considerably improve the ratings and make reality TV as relevant as it once was.

So they decided to include a pregnant woman in the cast. The potential was limitless. The show runs a total of 3 months; at best Maria would deliver the baby around the finale. And the whole country would've followed the struggles of the last weeks of her term, the delivery on national TV... America's baby! And what if a male participant gets involved with Maria and becomes the baby's stepdad during the show? The implications with the real father outside...

If not, if Maria and her baby do not become a hit, and leave the show early, at least she was an interesting argument for people to turn on the TV at the beginning of the season and hopefully get hooked because of any of the other cast members the show enlisted to make Big Brother relevant again. That season was make or break for the show's producers.

In a way, Maria knew all of this. And felt protected. She would be taken special care because of her pregnancy - which would be financially supported by the show; a great selling point for an uninsured Millennial in America like herself. She was also smart enough to know she was a few feet ahead of her fellow cast members when it comes to public recognition. She would be "the pregnant lady". Was there the possibility of that turning against her? Maybe. But chances were that it would be strong enough to propel her past the waves into calmer seas, where she could finally find her crowd and garnish the support needed to swim all the way to the million-dollar winning award.

During her stay at the hotel, Maria would rub her belly with anti-stretch mark cream, eat for two, take long hot tub baths, and rest, and sleep. Preparing herself for the transformations coming her way. Slowly detaching from her former self.