After keeping her pregnancy a secret from the press, Laura Linney has given birth to her first child. The 49-year-old actress just surprised everyone when she gave birth to a son on Wednesday, January 8th.

Laura Linney, a big film and television star, will be starting the new year off as a mom. It is the first child for her and her husband, Marc Schauer, who were engaged in 2007, and then married in 2009. Schauer is a real estate agent.

A representative of the couple told People Magazine that “Mother and baby are happy and healthy.” Linney’s son is named Bennett Armistead Schauer.

It was easier for the Oscar nominated actress to keep her pregnancy since she has been doing a good job of staying out of the spotlight in the past year.

She had never addressed the pregnancy publicly, and unlike most celebrities, she was not one to debut her baby bump publicly, and make a publicity stunt out of her pregnancy.

Laura Linney gave birth to a baby. Kept the entire pregnancy a secret. It also shows you she doesn't care about being famous. Love it.

— Enty Lawyer (@entylawyer) January 18, 2014

Laura Linney is a three-time nominated Academy Award actress for her films Kinsey, The Savages, and You Can Count On Me. She was most recently seen in The Fifth Estate and Hyde Park On Hudson.

Before her last couple of films, she enjoyed greats success with the hit Showtime series The Big C, which ran from 2010-2013, and earned her a handful of award nominations.

Linney was last seen attending the Women in Film’s Crystal + Lucy Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, which was held in June of 2013. At the awards, she was seen wearing an all black outfit that conveniently hid any baby bump that would have been showing at the time. Following the awards, which was not something that was aired on television, she left the spotlight.

Laura Linney had a baby at 49. I guess when people said "you still have time" they weren't kidding.

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) January 18, 2014

The actress was even able to hide her pregnancy well enough for her to not make headlines until over a week after the baby was born, which seems like a quite a talent for a celebrity like Laura Linney.

Image via Wikimedia Commons