Procter: It’s The Perfect Time For Me To Have A Baby

CSI: Miami’s Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne) will appear in the March 6 issue of Parade magazine. Procter is pictured on the cover with her daughter, Pippa, and inside the actress talks about being adopted and starting her own family.

Procter has been on Miami since the show premiered in 2002. “I love my job,” she told Parade, but “work had somehow gotten in the way of having children.” The actress added, “I really beat myself up for waiting so long when I’d always wanted children and family had been the basis of happiness my whole life. We (she and music producer partner Paul Bryan) did IUI (intrauterine insemination) and two rounds of IVF (in vitro fertilization), and nothing worked. We considered adoption, but the process takes so long. In the end, we gave up on the treatments, and the very next month, I got pregnant naturally.”

Over on CSI: New York, the writers included Anna Belknap’s (Lindsay Monroe) second pregnancy on the show. However, when Procter announced that she was pregnant, the Miami writers decided to cover her up instead. “Initially they told me they were not going to write the pregnancy into the story, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is a mistake,'” Procter revealed. “And then it turned out to be a blessing. I couldn’t go on location—I had to be in the lab so they could hide me. The camera got higher and higher as I got wider and wider. It hit the ceiling at one point, and I said, ‘That should make me look thin.'”

Procter’s Miami costars have been very supportive. “Eva La Rue (Natalia Boa Vista) gave me a blanket and cardigan that has been Pippa’s good outfit for when she goes to the doctor,” the actress shared. She added, “David [Caruso, Horatio Caine] was very sweet, and Adam [Rodriguez, Eric Delko] and Rex [Linn, Frank Tripp] called me. It’s the perfect time for me to have a baby on the show. I have relationships with everybody so I’m able to bring her into an environment that’s very comforting.”

There’s more at Parade.com here and here. You can also take a look at Procter in the following Entertainment Tonight clip: