Emilie Ikeda surprised viewers and her TODAY co-hosts on Monday by revealing that she is five months pregnant with her first child.
The correspondent shared the news during the 3rd Hour of TODAY, catching Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer off guard as she showed photos of herself and her husband, Pat, holding ultrasound images.
The baby is due Jan. 17, 2027.
“For those at home, they legitimately don’t know,” Ikeda told viewers after Melvin reacted to the announcement. She explained that she was surprising the people around her at the same time as the audience.
The 32-year-old correspondent also revealed that she and Pat have decided not to find out the baby’s sex before the birth.
For Ikeda, keeping that information private is part of what makes the pregnancy feel special.
She said that in a world where information can be discovered almost instantly, there are few genuine surprises left. Not knowing whether they are having a boy or a girl, she suggested, gives the couple one of those rare moments to look forward to.
The announcement came after months of keeping the pregnancy largely to herself while continuing to work in a job built around breaking news.
Ikeda said her first trimester was particularly difficult. The nausea was challenging enough on its own, but her work often requires her to travel and report from the field, making pregnancy harder to hide.
Then came a more frightening moment during a July heatwave.
While interviewing former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, Ikeda became light-headed and began to feel as though she might black out. At that point, she had not even told her own family that she was pregnant.
She quietly told Rios what was happening before moving to a shaded area and drinking water.
Rios, who is also a mother, stayed with her and helped turn what could have been an embarrassing and frightening episode into a moment Ikeda later described with gratitude.
The experience also illustrates how carefully Ikeda had been protecting the news before making it public.
Her pregnancy has unfolded alongside some of the most difficult reporting of her career.
Ikeda has been covering the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in 2023. The disturbing evidence and testimony emerging from the case have been difficult to hear, particularly while she is expecting her own first child.
She said the support of colleagues has helped her manage those assignments. After closing arguments, Ikeda recalled that Laura Jarrett called simply to check on her after hearing some of the harrowing details.
Away from work, Ikeda said prayer has helped her find some calm. She also tries to watch a short, lighthearted television show before going to bed.
Now in her second trimester, the pregnancy has become easier than those early months.
There are still the familiar adjustments. Ikeda has been craving an Italian hoagie but is avoiding deli meat during pregnancy, meaning that particular craving will have to wait.
Her public announcement, however, marked a very different kind of moment for the correspondent.
Instead of reporting someone else’s breaking news, Ikeda became the story herself.
The surprise was especially fitting for someone who had deliberately kept the pregnancy away from the public eye. By choosing to reveal it live, she turned a carefully guarded personal milestone into an unexpected TODAY moment.
For now, Ikeda and Pat are waiting for January, when the couple will finally discover the one detail they have chosen to leave unknown: whether their first child will be a boy or a girl.
