Céline Dion Pregnant with Embryo Frozen for Eight Years

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Céline Dion, now expecting her second child, is “very excited,” says her doctor, Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, who performed the in vitro fertilization procedure that made the 41-year-old singer’s pregnancy possible. When he called her earlier this week to say the pregnancy test was positive, “You could hear her chuckling,” he says. “She was very happy. So was René. They are both very thankful.”

Dr. Rosenwaks, director of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at New York-Presbyerian Hospital/Weill Cornell Center Medical Center, transferred a embryo that had been kept frozen in liquid nitrogen for the past eight years. “She is very, very early in her pregnancy,” says her doc.

Céline had her embryos frozen when she went through IVF while trying to conceive her first child, René-Charles, who was born in January 2001. When she completed her performance run in Las Vegas in 2007, she consulted Dr. Rosenwaks about trying again. “She came back to have the embryos transferred back because she wanted to have another baby,” he says.

According to the fertility specialist, freezing an embryo for eight years is not necessarily a problem. “There have been embryos that have been [frozen] for more than 10 years, and even more than 15 years, that have successfully thawed and resulted in a pregnancy,” says Dr. Rosenwaks.

Meanwhile, the doctor says, “She is feeling well. So far, so good. I look forward to hearing the fetal heartbeat. René and Céline are both looking forward to a pregnancy that is a healthy one.” He adds, “There is no question she is ecstatic.”

Céline is due in May 2010.

Source: PEOPLE

— Liz McNeil