It’s a girl!
Gregg Giannotti was on vacation this week, and was supposed to be chilling on Fire Island with the boat…instead, he’s at the hospital, where his wife, Gina, gave birth to their second daughter on Wednesday night!
“I did take one look at Twitter yesterday and saw a lot of comments about how it was awkward I wasn’t there to see Chernoff,” Gio said when he called into the Morning Show on Thursday to make the announcement. “What was happening was I was becoming a dad again! Another beautiful daughter. My wife has just gone through it in ways I couldn’t imagine, but mom and baby are doing well, and I talked to Mark and he told me I was right where I needed to be.”
Little Summer Rae Giannotti was born just after 10 p.m. on June 30 – as Gio laughed, he hoped it could wait a couple hours so she could share a birthday with WFAN – and it was the end of a long, tough road for the Giannotti family.
“We haven’t talked about it because of the ups and downs of this, and I know Boomer your son is going through it with IVF,” Gio said. “We had some rough times in the beginning; we had four embryos to put in, and the first one didn’t work at all.”
Gio was actually on the air, last July 21, when he found out in the middle of an update that Gina had a miscarriage with embryo two.
“All the aftermath with that emotionally and physically with Gina…we had two embryos left, and one was a twin embryo where the doctor didn’t think that was the way to go,” Gio said. “So we looked at it as if we had one chance, and here she is – little Marky Chernoff Giannotti!”
The baby came a little earlier than expected, but she is healthy and mom is doing well.
“We had ups and downs, and Gina had gone to a high-risk pregnancy doctor for a while, and it was so nerve-wracking after the miscarriage,” Gio said. “When you hear the doctor say the baby is out, and you hear her crying and you look over and she’s there after all of this…there’s nothing like that. I’m never squeezed Gina’s hand harder in my life, and it’s a moment I’ll always remember.”
And, of course, Gregg had to bring a moment of levity, noting that his IVF experience was almost the same as the one Gunnar Esiason went through with one big exception.
“I didn’t get a needle to my nuts, but almost everything was the same!” Gio laughed. “She had to give herself two shots a day, then to have the surgery to have the baby…she’s the strongest person I know. This is as good as it gets, we’re so happy.”
Gio is usually a pretty open book, but kept his and Gina’s journey close to the vest until their miracle child arrived Wednesday.
“It was tough not to share all this with the audience, but because of what we had happen to us, Gina didn’t even tell her friends she grew up with until this morning,” Gio said. “I appreciate you guys tolerating a day or two I had to take off, or me coming in a little more pissed off than usual, but this is an amazing feeling that can’t be replicated.”
Congratulations to Gregg, Gina, and big sister Sabrina!
Follow WFAN's morning team on Twitter: @7BOOMERESIASON, @GioWFAN, @Alsboringtweets, @JerryRecco, and @WFANMornings
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