WGN Morning News Blog

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ana Belaval, who never believed in awards, never submitted anything and claimed to never care, has won an Emmy and is almost sleeping with the statue.

Let's put it all in context.  Submitting material for any award show is a pain in the %$#.  You have to look for a category among tons of them. Gather your material, which can mean looking at hours and hours of tape. That's if you find the tapes since the filing system at most newsrooms is not the best. Then you have to copy the material on to a DVD or tape, and then fill out the paper work, which can be as confusing as filling out tax forms. 

Many of my colleagues have the system down pat or an intern who has the system down pat.  I have neither so the prospect of submitting anything once a year, stresses me out.  I seldom do it. To be honest, I've only done it twice and have been nominated both times.  At this point, my mother would say that goes to show me I should submit more often.

But this year I submitted on three categories, at the constant nagging of my Around Town producer.  The process was grueling and I could've sworn I had gotten something wrong.  Since I never win anything, I convinced myself I wasn't going to be nominated. But I was, for our One Tank Trip series. And honestly that was enough to make me proud. Now I could say that I was a twice emmy award nominated journalist.  That's an accomplishment.

So when the ceremony came around, I was busy with my one month old baby. My husband encouraged me to go since a night out would be nice. I went with my producer and his wife. My good friend Dean Richards was my date. Steve had to stay home with Amelia. We are on a formula budget so we can't be spending money on babysitting and a ticket for my husband to an award ceremony where his wife wasn't even going to win.

I put on the only dress that fit me, put on make up for the first time in a while and off I went.  Our category was the second to last one, so I was almost ready to leave. Dean had to hold me down.  But then, the unthinkable happened.  We won!  My producer Terry Barthel and I were shocked.  Since he had won one before, he was gracious enough to let me take the statue home.  We will split the cost of the second one. Hey, even NATAS is on a budget, so you get a statue per category.

Once that gold statue was in my hand, I was a believer. So proud to be a winner, especially after a month of trying to figure out my new daughter. I had spent weeks feeling physically sick and mentally inadequate, so it was a fantastic feeling to be a winner.  To know that I still had my career and that I knew how to do it well. "You love me, you really, really love me" to quote Oscar winner Sally Field.

As cheesy as it sounds, I was also happy to show my daughter that women can almost have it all.  So I came home with my new man Emmy to my great husband, changed into a t shirt and bathed my new baby.  The best of both worlds.