Courtesy of Kristen Holmes/Instagram
CNN’s Kristen Holmes Welcomes Baby No. 2 With Husband Noah Gray: ‘A Lot of Compartmentalization’
The CNN family has grown! National correspondent Kristen Holmes gave birth to baby No. 2, her second child with husband Noah Gray.
The couple welcomed a daughter named Eleanor Ricky Gray in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, January 14, a rep for Holmes confirmed to People. The baby girl weighed 6 lbs., 11 oz. and measured 19.5 inches long at birth.
The newborn’s name is a special nod to her grandparents. Eleanor is named after Kristen’s maternal grandmother, Eleanor Romano, and Noah’s father, Ricky. The couple are already parents to their 3-year-old son, Eliot.
“Eliot is already in love with his new baby sister and can’t wait to take care of her,” the CNN anchor told the outlet. “Eliot meeting Eleanor was one of the sweetest encounters my husband and I have ever witnessed. He wanted to cover her in kisses and make sure she has everything she needed.”
The TV reporter said that Eliot was excited about the “gift” Eleanor brought home for him from the hospital, joking, “She shocked him by knowing his love of Hot Wheels from birth.”
The new mom admitted to having a “grueling” and “exhausting” last year as she navigated balancing her full-time career and motherhood, but said the experience has been “one of the most rewarding.”
“Seeing a campaign through from start to finish was one of my ultimate career goals, but it was also incredibly important to me to grow my family and give Eliot a sibling, so I set out to do both,” she explained. “It was a lot of compartmentalization.”
She detailed busy workdays throughout her pregnancy, juggling between jet-setting to cover the 2024 presidential election to dealing with “intense morning sickness.”
“For much of the last year I was in a new state every day without time to even think about what I was physically doing — waking up at 4 a.m., sometimes with intense morning sickness, getting on a flight at 6 a.m., covering a campaign rally in a swing state, and then doing it all over again the next day,” she explained. “I remember at 8 months pregnant, calling my husband and saying, ‘Oh my god, we’re going to have another baby in the house.’ And he was like, ‘…yes?'”
Kristen has been with CNN for more than 12 years. She first connected with her future husband in 2015 during a phone call when she was an on-air producer at the White House, and Noah, also a producer, reached out regarding breaking news. Their first in-person meeting took place a year later while they were both covering the Donald Trump campaign.
The correspondent gushed about her husband and the role he had played in her life, sharing that she felt “lucky” to be where she was today.
“All of this was only possible with the help and support of my incredibly patient husband,” she told People. “I’m constantly reminded how lucky I am to be able to pursue my career ambitions, as well as my dreams of building a family.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Life & Style does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.