When an actor in a TV series gets pregnant, it's not unusual to work that into the script. But Jane Seymour, the title star of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,, had to do it the hard way. " The first four months of my pregnancy I was pretending not to be pregnant," she says. The pregnancy became part of the story line pretty quickly, but by that time Seymour, 46, and her husband,-actor/director James Keach, 49, were the happy parents of twin boys, John Stacy and Kristopher Steven, now 20 months old. So Seymour had to wear padding under her frontierswoman skirts for the rest of the shooting. " My babies came in with me every day. They would sit on my fake belly on the set."

Havying given birth offscreen and on, Seymour calls this "the happiest period of my life."The popular pioneer saga for which she won a Golden Globe Award has become a gathering place for the whole family in millions of homes and is entering its sixth season.The series and Seymour and her co-star, Joe Lando- won a Family Film Award in 1996. The emancipated Dr. Michaela Quinn, a feisty and dedicated doctor working in a post-Civil War frontier town, is a role model for girls everywhere. More than for perhaps any other role, Seymour is able to draw on her own life to make the part come alive.

More important even than professional satisfaction, though, the show gives Seymour the life she wants. When she and Keach were married in 1993, they were determined to have children of their own. But it took two years of doctors' visits and high-tech intervention for it to happen. Family is definitely a high priority. Fortunately, the set, a dusty recreation of Colorado Springs in 1866, is located in a beautiful state park just 15 minutes from her Malibu home. "1 can actually raise my kids and work with great people,"she has commented.

When Seymour is filming Dr. Quinn, she has a wake-up call at 4:40 A.M. in order to be on the set at 5:40. "1 have the usual working mother nightmares," she has pointed out. "Finding money for school lunches, making sure my daughter gets help with her chemistry, deciding when the toddlers can visit Mom at work." Her older children (Katie and Sean, from Seymour's earlier marriage, and stepdaughter, Jenny) often do homework in her trailer, and Kristopher and John are on the set every day.The show's creator/producer, Beth Sullivan, and her co-stars and crew couldn't have been more understanding during Seymour's difficult pregnancy, and hers aren't the only kids on the set. "I tell you, if you don't bring a child or a dog, you're out of the loop."

It's taken some of the same determination Dr. Quinn displays to get to this point in her life. Daughter of a British obstetrician and his Dutch wife, Seymour was born in England. (She and Keach and their brood still spend Christmas there in the restored 15th century stately home she owns.) She began training in dance at an early age, and was just 13 when she made her professional debut With the London Festival Ballet.That same year, she danced with the visiting Kirov Ballet. When a knee injury ended her dance career, she turned to acting making her film debut as a chorus girl in Richard Attenborough's Oh, What a Lovely War. Her first starring role was in the James Bond flick, Live and Let die. But her favorite movie is the romantic Somewhere in Time; she co-stars in it with Christopher Reeve. Reeve is a good friend, "the only leading man I keep in touch with." Seymour even used the film's music in the delivery room.

Busy as her life is, Seymour makes time for children's charities. A passionate painter in her free time, Seymour has raised S25,000 for the Make- A- Wish Foundation by auctioning off an original watercolor she created for a special Discover Card. She is a UNICEF ambassador and works for Childhelp USA, a national organization dedicated to the research, treatment, and prevention of child abuse; and for City Hearts, a program that works with kids in trouble, or likely to get into trouble. "We give them a diversion project, teaching them acting, dance, and painting," Seymour explains. "Some of the kids are writing poetry and plays: It's a really exciting program." And just the kind of humanitarian effort Dr. Quinn would approve of'.