So far, so good.
That was the message from a tired but happy Rene Angélil to his friend Julie Snyder yesterday afternoon. The husband and manager of Quebecois pop superstar Céline Dion called TV host Snyder from St. Mary's Medical Centre in West Palm Beach, Fla., where Dion gave birth to twin boys Saturday.
Since they were premature, the boys are being kept in an incubator, but Dion is already breastfeeding the babies and it looks like the mother and her new sons will head for the family homestead in Jupiter Island, Fla., by mid-week, according to Angélil.
The babies were delivered by Caesarean section. One weighed five pounds, 10 ounces; the other five pounds, four ounces. Angélil cut both umbilical cords, and, at a news conference Saturday, he said he couldn't be happier.
"This is the greatest thing that could've happened to us," said the 68-year-old Angélil. "I hope to provide to them all of the love that I can for as long as I can."
Angélil wasn't expecting the births so soon. On Friday, he told Snyder he didn't think it was going to happen until after the weekend.
Dion, 42, had been hospitalized Oct. 17 as a preventive measure. The pregnancy came after six rounds of in vitro fertilization treatments, a process that began in the spring of 2009.
"Céline is the most maternal person I know," Snyder said on the phone yesterday. "Her mother had 14 children and I think Céline would've liked to have 10 kids."
Snyder conducted a three-hour interview with Dion at her Florida home on Oct. 13 for a one-hour TV special set to air on the TVA Network Thursday at 9 p.m. At the start of the show, Snyder will talk live via a satellite hookup to Angélil (and maybe even to Dion).
"When we met, she said she felt very serene," said Snyder. "She was tired. Imagine two babies, almost 11 pounds of baby in her belly."
Snyder has fought for years to have more public financial support for mothers undergoing fertility treatment and she also underwent fertility treatment prior to the birth of her daughter Romy two years ago.
The fertility treatment was a trying experience for Dion, Snyder said.
"Like she says -'After six treatments, you wonder if you should stop or keep on going. But the only way I was going to stop was if the doctor said it was dangerous for me or for the babies.' You just never know. With (Dion's first son) René-Charles, it worked after the first treatment."
The parents haven't yet decided on names for the babies. In Hello Canada, Dion suggested that might take some time.
"We're still talking about it, believe it or not," she said just before the birth. "It might be Baby A and Baby B for a while."
But she won't be nursing the boys full-time for long. She returns to Las Vegas in mid-March to begin another gruelling series of shows there, with 70 concerts already on the schedule.
