Marina Squerciati makes plenty of news during a TV season due to the ups and downs of playing Kim Burgess on NBC's Chicago P.D., but the actress had a big announcement from her personal life as she celebrated the end of 2024. She took to social media to reveal a pregnancy that she'd managed to hide all year, with one photo celebrating "bikini life" with her baby bump and another showcasing a pretty hilarious look at her older daughter's artistic take. Plus, her caption answers a question from her show's current twelfth season.
The actress certainly had more to celebrate than her One Chicago character often does to prepare for 2025! Take a look at her announcement on Instagram below, and be sure to click through to see both photos:
Kudos to Marina Squerciati and those around her for successfully hiding her pregnancy, because there was absolutely no sign during the end of Chicago P.D. Season 11 or start of Season 12, other than that – as noted in her caption – she missed the first two episodes of the fall season. NBC's hit show had found a great way to explain the character's absence, and Squerciati missing a couple installments had me assuming that it was due to One Chicago budget cutbacks! Who knew?
The pregnancy announcement not only showed off Squerciati's baby bump, complete with #BikiniLife, #MiamiVibes, and #motherofdragons, but also her daughter's take. Perhaps that last dragon-related hashtag is a sign of what her daughter represented in her artwork – the challenges Squerciati faced as a working mom successfully keeping some very big news private from the public!
This was the second time during the run of Chicago P.D. that Squerciati has kept a baby bump off camera, as she was pregnant during the seventh season back in 2017. She stepped away from the show for her maternity leave, which P.D. explained by Burgess needing a furlough to take care of her sister. Due to timing in 2024, the actress evidently didn't need to take a break from filming part of the way into a season. We can just all be glad that she was able to take time with her family instead of rushing back to work for the first two episodes of Season 12.
And her One Chicago friends wasted no time in celebrating the news after she made the announcement on Instagram. Within an hour, former P.D. star Tracy Spiridakos had posted three hearts in Squerciati's comment section, with executive producer Brian Luce commenting "Priceless!" LaRoyce Hawkins, who has worked alongside Squerciati from the very beginning of P.D. as Kevin Atwater, wrote:
the best to doit love you Burgess✨
Messages of congratulations are also pouring in from fans, along with wishes for a Happy New Year. All in all, Squerciati's post was very sweet to see during the winter break of her longtime show, and not just because Burgess could be going through the wringer again in the upcoming One Chicago crossover in late January.
I have to echo all the other One Chicago fans (as well as her P.D. pals) in congratulating Marina Squerciati on the new arrival, and hopefully the new year only brings good things for her and her family.
