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Hasselbeck Books Baby Time

Tue., Oct. 16, 2007 10:30 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is taking some time to enjoy the view...from a maternity ward.

A spokesperson for The View has announced that Hasselbeck will be MIA for the chatfest's all-important sweeps period, and then some, as she embarks on her maternity leave. The 30-year-old daytime fixture is expecting her second child with footballing hubby Tim.

While ABC initially said Monday morning that Hasselbeck would remain on the air right up until her due date and then depart on either Nov. 8 or 9, Hasselbeck announced a change of plan later in the day.

Phoning in to den mother Barbara Walters' Sirius radio show Monday night, Hasselbeck informed her boss that she would actually be cutting out sooner than expected, on Oct. 23.

The earlier exit will allow Hasselbeck and her family a few extra days to settle in Phoenix, where Tim just signed a contract to play for the Arizona Cardinals, and where Hasselbeck now intends on giving birth.

"I have to take early maternity leave so that I can get out there and actually introduce the doctor to my parts, before she pulls a child out of me," Hasselbeck told Walters and show cohost (and View producer) Bill Geddie. "But I'll be back, after the hiatus."

After receiving a round of well wishes, Hasselbeck warned that her premature exit wasn't a permanent one.

"Oh, don't get that excited that the Republican is gone so soon, ladies! I will be back to torture you all."

In the meantime, a rotating roster of celebrity guest hosts is expected to fill in for the missing mother.

The show's resident conservative cohost announced her pregnancy last April, just one week after Rosie O'Donnell said she would be leaving the show.

"I figured that we're going to be lonely without you," Hasselbeck told O'Donnell. "So, Tim and I thought we should get busy and maybe make a little cohost."

At the time, the Survivor alum said she and her husband (who, until the Cardinals came calling, had been working as a TV analyst after getting cut as a backup quarterback by the New York Giants), did not know the sex of the baby and would wait until the child's birth to find out.

It'll be the second child for the Hasselbecks, who celebrated their five-year anniversary in July.

The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Grace Elisabeth, on Apr. 6, 2005—the same birthday as her father.

The duration of the upcoming maternity leave is unclear; for Grace's birth, Hasselbeck took six weeks off.

(Originally published Oct. 15., 2007 at 9:35 a.m. PT.)