I work directly with three producers: one for Eyewitness News at 6PM, one for the 11pm news and one for Face the State. Two are on leave now for maternity.
The 6PM producer Jamie Mascia is due back this summer after giving birth to a girl Giuliana, and tonight (wednesday) our 11PM producer Leah Scott gave birth to a boy, Pressley. The Face the State producer isn’t planning on maternity leave anytime soon. Chris Hamm has no plans to get pregnant. In fact, he is covering Leah’s shift on the nightbeat.
We are kind of used to this baby thing here at Channel 3. The producer births come just 9 months after Kara gave birth to Julian, followed by her producer for Better Connecticut Melissa Dethlefsen leaving to have a boy, John. Better Connecticut associate producer Jen Selva left to give birth to Lyla.
Our bosses are very understanding of all this: both our news director Dana Neves and assistant news director Patience Hettrick have five children between them and have gone on maternity in the past few years also! All of these colleagues of mine took maternity before the baby came so they could prepare for the big arrival.
There was one exception as far as I can remember, Susan Raff. She did a live shot on the 6PM news and the baby was born before the 11PM news.
On another note…I’m glad I’m a guy. That’s a lot of baby showers to go to!
Categories: Parenting, Uncategorized, WFSB & WFSB history
Dennis House blog 
That is what you call a real Baby Boom. If your Face the State person ever had to go on maternity leave he would definitely have to be a guest on the show. Kara got back into the swing of things real quickly and I am sure your producers will also. Congratulations to all!
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I think something is in the water coolers at the station… Also, to read you reference the 11pm news at the ‘Nightbeat’ brings back memories! I wish they kept the alternate title for the last newscast of the day, just as the first newscast has its own title! Just sayin…
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