ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150134
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
MEMO: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
Madonna with child is now Madonna and child.
A 6-pound, 9-ounce girl was delivered Monday. The Material Girl and her baby, Lourdes Maria, are fine.
``Mother Madonna Ciccone, father Carlos Leon and their daughter are all resting comfortably,'' said the star's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg. ``We would like to thank everyone for their kind wishes.''
Rosenberg wouldn't reveal any other details, including whether the birth was natural or by Caesarean-section.
The baby, born at 4:01 p.m. at Good Samaritan Hospital, is the first child of Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, 38. The 30-year-old father is a personal trainer and boyfriend to the pop singer and actress.
Months before she announced her pregnancy, Madonna told ``Primetime Live'' she planned to find a suitable candidate for ``the fatherhood gig'' by taking out a personal ad.
She didn't have to bother. The darkly handsome Leon was right in her own gym. She hasn't married him and hasn't said she plans to.
But she did not use him as a ``stud service,'' she says in November's Vanity Fair. And she didn't get pregnant for ``shock value,'' she said.
``I realize that these are all comments made by persons who cannot live with the idea that something good is happening to me.''
In Vanity Fair, Madonna describes the moment she first saw her fetus during an ultrasound:
``I was stunned when I saw on the ultrasound a tiny, living creature spinning around in my womb. Tap-dancing, I think. Waving its tiny arms around and trying to suck its thumb. I could have sworn I heard its laughing,'' she wrote.
Once she was pregnant, the woman who has made a career out of keeping herself in the public eye suddenly became a recluse. Very few pictures of the pregnant Madonna were captured.
She met Leon, an amateur bicycle racer, while running in Manhattan's Central Park in 1994.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB