MONTREAL — Celine Dion declared years ago that she had fertilized eggs at a New York fertility clinic — one would soon be born, and his “twin” would be stored there for awhile.
Now, eight years later, Dion’s long-awaited second child finally appears set to arrive.
The pop superstar and her husband are rejoicing that the couple will have their second baby in May after undergoing fertility treatments at a New York clinic.
“Celine is very, very happy,” Murielle Blondeau, a spokeswoman with the Bureau de Francine Chaloult, which handles media relations for the singer in Quebec, said Tuesday.
“Celine and Rene are full of joy. It’s been a big dream for Celine to have a second child.”
The sex of the baby was not immediately known. It was also not immediately clear whether it was the same embryo Dion spoke about in a television interview eight years ago.
In 2000, Dion told an interviewer that she was pregnant with her first child, Rene-Charles. She added that Rene-Charles already had a sibling in the works.
“I have a twin. It is called a laboratory twin,” Dion said in the interview.
“I do not know if it is good forever but I think it lasts for a very long time. I will go get it, that’s for sure.”
Dr. Seang Lin Tan, a world-renowned fertility expert at the McGill University Reproductive Centre, said frozen embryos can be kept for years before they are used. While the first and second child may be siblings, he said, it’s wrong to call them twins.
He noted that Dion’s last pregnancy caused a spike in interest in the procedure.
Dion’s first child, Rene-Charles, started private school this week in Florida.
Dion, 41, is the youngest of 14 children.