Hasselbeck schedules return to 'The View'

NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- "The View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck is scheduled to return to the U.S. chat show next month after more than two months of maternity leave.

Hasselbeck left the show Aug. 7 to prepare for the birth of her third child.

She is slated to return Oct. 19, ABC said Wednesday.

The hosts's only update from Hasselbeck was when she phoned "The View" studio last week to briefly chat live, on-air with her friends and fellow panelists Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and Sherri Shepherd.

"We've missed Elisabeth both on and off the air," Walters, the show's creator and executive producer, said in a statement. "We've missed her opinions and her good humor. I am so happy she is coming back."

"The other people were nice, but they weren't her," moderator Goldberg said of the show's recent series of guest hosts. "I've missed her, I've really, really missed her."

"I've lost my political opposite, and I'm having withdrawals," Behar added. "I'm so happy she's coming back."

"I am beyond excited. I know she is getting tired of me texting her nonstop with: 'I MISS YOU. PLEASE COME BACK,'" Shepherd said.