July 13, 2008

Angelina Jolie gives birth to twins


The obstetrician who delivered the twins, Dr. Michel Sussmann, told The Associated Press that the actress, the babies and Jolie's partner, Brad Pitt, "are doing marvelously well."

Sussmann said Jolie gave birth to a boy, Knox Leon, and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline, by Caesarean section on Saturday night.

He told the AP on Sunday morning that the boy weighed just over 5 pounds and the girl 5 pounds. The 33-year-old actress gave birth at around 8 p.m. on Saturday night, the doctor told the AP by telephone.

Pitt was there during the operation, said the doctor, who delivered the twins at the seaside Lenval hospital in Nice in southern France.

"Everything is going well," said Sussmann. "The mother, the babies, the father are doing marvelously well."

He said the Caesarean was moved forward from its originally planned date "for medical reasons" so that the babies could be born "in the best conditions." Sussman did not give details.

He said Jolie is expected to stay in the hospital for a few more days. The doctor said he believed the baby girl's middle name was chosen in honor of Jolie's mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, who died in January 2007 after a 7 1/2-year battle with cancer.

Jolie and Pitt already have four children: Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2.

Jolie had checked into the hospital late last month to rest and be monitored by her doctor before the birth.

Before that, she, Pitt and their children had moved into a large estate, Miraval, in the French hamlet of Correns, which is just a short helicopter ride from the hospital. Correns is about 60 miles from Nice, a resort on the Mediterranean.

Though the lenses of the world's paparazzi had been trained on maternity wards across the French Riviera, Jolie managed to slip unobserved into the clinic, which has magnificent views of the Mediterranean, reportedly arriving by helicopter on the hospital's rooftop helipad.

Pitt was seen coming and going after Jolie's hospitalization became public.

The first photos of the new twins are expected to fetch millions of dollars.

Paparazzi gathered outside the hospital in Nice on Sunday morning, hoping for a shot of Pitt.

Local newspaper Nice Matin, which first broke news of the birth, reported Sunday that the couple have sold rights for the first photo of their newly enlarged family to a U.S. publication, which it did not name, and that the proceeds would go to charity.

The newspaper gave no source for that information. But the doctor told the AP the couple decided to announce the birth to Nice Matin first because of its links to Nice. The newspaper called the twins "the most famous babies in the world."

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