Dylan Dreyer returns to TODAY from maternity leave: ‘It feels like I haven’t left’
Look who’s back!
Dylan Dreyer returned to the 3rd hour of TODAY on Monday after being on maternity leave following the birth of her third son, Russell James, last September.
“I was just saying it feels like I haven’t left,” she said. “Like, all of a sudden four months came and went and it’s done and the kids are home, taken care of and I’m back.”
Dylan and husband Brian Fichera are now parents to three boys, Rusty, Calvin, 4, and Oliver, 1. She says being a family of five is a whole new world.
“It’s weird. I can see how you can forget a kid,” she said.
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After Ollie was born, she thought about having a third baby and says Rusty truly rounds out the family.
“I’m so complete,” she said. “I really don’t want that extra one. I’m ready to start our family and to start doing things.”
While Dylan, who earlier this month shed her maternity leave haircut, has returned to work, she has some special memories of the time.
The first one goes back to Rusty’s birth, when he was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit after he was born six weeks before his due date.
“First thing, the NICU stay for Rusty, the nurses are absolutely incredible,” she said. “Looking back, I can’t even believe we were one of the families that was visiting every single day, going home without the baby and coming back in. The NICU nurses were so sweet. There were tears flowing when we left. ”
Dylan is also grateful for the success of her children’s book, “Misty the Cloud,” which turned into a New York Times bestseller. She says Ollie has become “obsessed” with reading it.
“That was a huge deal that we worked on for years and years and years,” she said. “I never thought it would come out and I’d be promoting it while I was on maternity leave.”
Her third maternity leave moment is a recent development. Noting that the family lives in a two-bedroom apartment in New York City, Dylan is excited she managed to get all of her boys into one room.
“I’ve successfully fit three beds into the boys’ room,” she said. “So, we’ve got Calvin in a loft bed. Ollie’s underneath, still in a crib, and then the other crib’s against the window, which I’ve gotten a lot of comments on Instagram.”
People have pointed out it could be drafty there and against a window, and Dylan also said the items on the shelf above the crib have never fallen in the two years they’ve been there.
There’s no need to worry, though: Rusty isn’t in the crib yet — he’s still in Dylan and Brian’s room, she said.
