Procter: She’s The Key To My Future

For CSI: Miami actress Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne), having a child reaffirmed the love she feels for her family.

Procter was adopted, and she has always been comfortable with that fact. “I adore my parents, but I always wondered if I would feel a different kind of love—not more or less, just different—for someone who was biologically related,” she told Parade magazine. “I couldn’t wait to look at someone who shared my genes. I thought my baby was going to provide a decoder key to my past. But then I looked at Pippa and realized, no, she’s actually the key to my future.”

The actress loves her job, but work got in the way of having children. She and her partner, musician Paul Bryan, had some trouble conceiving at first, but the pair eventually succeeded. “Everyone at CSI: Miami was really great about accommodating me,” Procter said. “The scripts were written so that my character, Detective Calleigh Duquesne, was always in the lab, where they could hide my belly. Pippa made her entrance with great timing on December 8, right at the beginning of the show’s holiday break.”

When Procter gave birth, she realized how difficult it must have been for her birth mother to give her up for adoption. “It was the right choice in my case,” the actress said. “And in a few years, once Pippa has settled in, I think we’ll probably adopt a child who’s over 5, because older children often don’t get considered for adoption.” She added that being a mother helped her realize that the love she felt for her own flesh and blood was no different than the love she felt for her adopted family. “My love for Pippa is overwhelming,” she explained. “But after all these years of wondering, the birth of my daughter has helped me see that the love I feel for her is the same love I feel for my mother or father or Paul. For me, family love is family love, no matter what.”

You can read the full interview on the Parade magazine website, which also has a picture of the actress and her daughter.