CBS Anchor Goes Into Labor While on the Air, Continues Broadcast

CBS6 Albany morning anchor Olivia Jaquith didn’t expect to be the breaking news story when she took her seat at the news desk for her usual a three-hour morning newscast on Wednesday, May 23.

Just minutes before the morning news began, Jaquith went into active labor and her water broke, but that didn’t stop her from delivering the local news – and later a baby boy.

“We do have some breaking news this morning – literally,” her co-anchor Julia Dunn said at the top of the May 23 broadcast. “Olivia’s water has broke, and she is anchoring the news now in active labor.”

While Jaquith, who at the time was two days past her due date with her first child, confirmed that she was in “early labor, early labor,” she said she was “happy to be here, and I’ll stay on the desk for as long as I possibly can. But if I disappear, that’s what’s going on.”

Jaquith went on to deliver the full three-hour morning broadcast, which was sprinkled with updates about the coming birth of her baby, before she went on to give birth to her son Quincy less than 24-hours later.

Her dedication to her job made her a viral news story across the world, something that “shocked” the new mom. Reflecting on that fateful Wednesday morning, Jaquith told CBS6 Albany that she was “kind of convinced I was not in labor it was just false contractions. And I couldn’t really explain the gush of liquid.” When it finally set in that her baby was on the way, she decided to continue the morning broadcast to help pass the time.

“It was funny because everybody, the producers, directors, they were all like, ‘You’re leaving now, right?” she recalled. “They thought I was staying because of a lack of maternity leave or something but even if I had 6-months of maternity leave, I think I would have done the exact same thing. Because one, I enjoy working. And two, it’s a good way to distract myself from something that wasn’t going to be a whole lot of fun (childbirth).”

Jaquith added that after the morning broadcast ended, “our director, Donna, got in my ear and said it was the most stressful three hours of her life.”

While Jaquith said that at the end of the broadcast “our director, Donna, got in my ear and said it was the most stressful three hours of her life,” she said the “positive comments in the live stream… everyone saying, you got this! You look great! That helped a lot. It’s just really nice to see how much people have gotten behind it, gotten excited about it… and then asking about him and getting very excited to know he was finally here.”

Jaquith and her husband are now settling into parenthood, the proud mom and new viral sensation sharing that her son is doing great and bonding with the family cat Peppercorn.