Popular TV host and actress Kris Aquino gave birth to a boy at 5:08 p.m. Thursday via Caesarian section at the Makati Medical Center in Makati City.
Aquino is naming the boy James, after his father, basketball player James Yap. The newborn weighs 4.3 pounds.
“But the baby’s name could still change, or another name could be added,” said TV host Boy Abunda, one of Aquino’s closest friends.
Abunda said Aquino’s delivery was unexpected. The actress was only in the hospital for a routine check-up when her doctor, Grace Luna, thought it best that she stay in the hospital because she was already having contractions or rhythmic tightening of the uterine wall to push the fetus down through the vagina during childbirth.
Luna then ordered that Aquino be brought to the deliver room at around 1 p.m. Aquino had been 35 weeks pregnant before going to labor.
Aquino had originally set May 6 as the birthdate of Baby James. She then changed her mind and wanted to give birth on the last week of April instead. Before she could suggest any preferred delivery dates, Luna even advised that a May 13 delivery was more probable.
“I had a blow by blow account of what happened. The operation had been really swift,” Abunda told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a telephone interview. “She was conscious during the operation, but was made to sleep shortly after."
With Aquino at the hospital were her husband Yap, her mother former president Corazon Aquino, and sister Balsy, according to talent manager Dolor Guevarra, Aquino’s friend.
Her brother, Genuine Opposition senatorial candidate Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, abruptly ended his campaign sortie in Central Mindanao upon learning she was about to give birth.
"I was in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte when my mother, at around 4:00pm, surprised with a call to say that she was on her way to the hospital as Kris was expected to give birth anytime soon,” he said. “She also asked me to fly back to Manila as soon as I could."
"Fortunately, I had a private plane with me which immediately brought me to Cebu, where I booked a commercial plane for Manila. I had wanted to take the first plane to Manila but I could only get accommodated in an 8:30pm flight,” he said.
“She gave birth while I was airborne on the way to Cebu," he added.
Kris Aquino and Yap tied the knot in 2005 but did not publicly admit it until last year. The actress has an 11-year-old son, Joshua, by actor Phillip Salvador.
They became the subject of news stories in March because of the shocking claims of a former receptionist at the Belo Medical clinic that she had an 11-month sexual relationship with Yap.
The woman, Hope Centeno, appeared on show biz talks shows with the story of her affair with Aquino’s husband. Since her revelations for two successive weekends, she had since gone scarce. Reports said she had left the country.
Aquino, who was seven months pregnant at the time, was hospitalized after experiencing repeated contractions that had threatened her pregnancy. With INQUIRER.net
