Lucy Goes to the Hospital Lucy Goes to the Hospital "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" is an episode of the 1950s American television show "I Love Lucy" in which the title character, Lucy Ricardo, gives birth to her son, "Little Ricky," after a "predictably chaotic" sequence of events. Twelve hours before the broadcast, the actress who played Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball, had given birth to Desi Arnaz, Jr. by cesarean section. The episode had actually been filmed on November 14, 1952. The episode was the culmination of an unprecedented pairing of the fictional pregnancy of Lucy with the real-life pregnancy of Lucille Ball; "real-time pregnancy
Lucy Goes to the Hospital (which had not yet been aired when the issue went to press). The first issue of "TV Guide", dated April 3, 1953, featured a cover photo of newborn Desi Arnaz, Jr., captioned as "Lucy's $50,000,000 Baby". Numerous stories were published about the sex of the baby, which was kept secret until the episode aired; when Ball actually had a boy as Lucy did in the script, headlines proclaimed "Lucy sticks to script: a boy it is!" ("New York Daily Mirror"), "TV was right: a boy for Lucille" ("New York Daily News"), and "What the Script Ordered" ("Life Magazine"). Lucy Goes