Rise And Shine

With A New Baby And A Daytime Emmy, 2019 Has Already Been A Life-Changing Year For B&B’s Jacqueline MacInnes Wood

- Tom Stacy

Most first-time mothers are understandably nervous about having a baby, but Jacqueline MacInnes Wood had the unique opportunity to learn about motherhood on the job — literally. In April 2018, Steffy gave birth to Kelly.

Nine months later, Steffy adopted Phoebe. Prior to that, “I wasn’t really around babies, so I got to learn a lot through them,” says Wood. “I realized they’re a lot more resilient than I thought. Feeding babies and having to burp them, holding them the right way, passing them to another person while supporting [the] neck.... I learned all of that through my show.”

That October, Wood had her own pregnancy news to share, and decided to announce it in grand fashion, with a little help from B&B Executive Producer/Head Writer Bradley Bell, who had scripted a runway walk for Steffy as part of the storyline. “He was ecstatic,” she reports of his response to the baby news. “He was so happy for me. Brad was so supportive and said, ‘If you don’t want to do the fashion show, that’s fine.’ I was still trying to hide my pregnancy but I didn’t want to turn it down. I wanted to announce it in my own way and my own time and once I heard about that fashion show, I thought, ‘Okay, there’s no hiding it now.’ I knew I was going to start popping so I was like, ‘Let’s enjoy this. This is a moment I’ll never forget.’ There were rumors and people wondering anyway, so I might as well announce it in a wild way. I mean, that’s really not surprising for me. So, that’s when I embraced it.”