CBS' hit forensic crime drama "CSI: Miami" ends its ninth season on Sunday, May 8, which, for star Emily Procter, also happens to be the first Mother's Day she will celebrate as a mom instead of just a daughter.
Early last December, Procter, 42, and boyfriend Paul Bryan became the parents of daughter Philippa Frances, called Pippa, the product of a natural pregnancy that came as a welcome surprise after rounds of fertility treatments (and, according to Procter, was heralded by a dream in which a nurse told her she was pregnant).
Procter returned to the show's Manhattan Beach, Calif., set in January. On this Friday in mid-March, she's working on the finale episode -- and working her way through her baby weight with spinning classes.
"So far, so good," she says of her knees.
Told the finale would air on Mother's Day, Procter beams.
"No! Is it really?"
Then a thoughtful publicist, aware of Procter's sweet tooth, appears with cupcakes.
"I might pick that one," Procter says, peering into the box, "because it might be peanut butter."
As to how motherhood is going, Procter downs some cupcake and says, "It's great. It's funny, because I did all of these interviews as soon as I had the baby, and they were asking questions, and I really didn't have an idea of anything, because I was so blurry. Gosh, I was so sleepy that I was like, 'It's wonderful!' "
And now?
"She's started cooing," Procter says. "I like to think she's talking. I had her on my lap the other day, and I was saying, 'I love you. I love you. I love you.' And she said, 'Oooh, ooh, ooh,' Now she just says, 'Oooh,' all the time. It gives you goose bumps.
"I loved this season, but I'm worried about next year, because I know they're going to make me work."
Procter's pregnancy wasn't written into the script, so at the end, she did most of her work sitting down behind something. In the finale -- which ends with at least two series regulars left for dead -- Procter is mobile again but keeping her lab coat on.
Before her first Mother's Day, Procter had Baby's First Christmas, but it didn't quite turn out the way she might have hoped.
"We had so many people come from home," Procter says. "(Pippa) had a cold, and that was really scary. So Christmas was spent in a very frantic and frenetic, 'Oooh, baby, oh, no, baby,' and me standing in the shower with the steam going and just crying, 'My baby's sick. Oh, no, my baby's sick.'
"We didn't open presents, I think, for a week."
While she had the usual new-parent sleep deprivation ("It's amazing what sleep does for your looks," she says), Procter didn't mind the late-night feedings.
"I really loved it," she says. "I just felt it was like the two of us. I just loved being with her when it was really quiet. … I miss it. I already miss it. She's sleeping through the night. Everybody's like, 'You're so lucky,' and I'm like, 'I kind of miss the middle of the night.' "
The new father also seems to be enjoying himself. "He loves it," Procter says. "It was instantaneous for him. He was the one who was like, 'Eh, I can have children, I cannot have children. I don't really care.' I would tell you it's the best thing I've ever done, but I think he would tell you it's the best thing he's ever done, which is a beautiful thing to see.
"He changes most of the diapers."
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