"And really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses," she said. "And he is there moaning. In between pushing, I am going, `Honey, are you OK?' and `Are you breathing? Are you OK?' "
Natasha Alexander Rodriguez was born on Nov. 18, 2004.
"As tough and big as he seems, he is real wimpy around doctors or any type of medical situation," Cynthia Rodriguez said, according to excerpts released Tuesday by YES. "I don't know why I thought the birth of our child would be different. In the middle of the night, I realized that I needed to go to the hospital. I wake him up. The first thing that comes out of his mouth, `Can we call your mother?' ... A few hours later, I said, `I think you can call my mom now.' Uh, and the color came back to his face when I told him he could call my mom."
A-Rod traveled from New York last week and arrived at a Miami-area hospital about 10 minutes after the birth of his second daughter, Ella Alexander Rodriguez, on April 21.
Alex and Cynthia met in 1996 at a gym in Miami.
"I scouted her out for a month," he said. "I wanted to see her routine, and I wanted to see what time she came in, see how consistent she was. And sure enough, she was like a machine. She would come in right after work, and get on the treadmill and do her abs. And finally, I build enough courage after about 3½ weeks. And I said, `I know you are going to go do some abs after. And do you mind if I join you?"
Cynthia said she was unaware of his celebrity status at first.
"I know he played baseball, because everybody in the gym said, `Do you know who that is? And he plays baseball' or whatever," she said. "I didn't grow up in a sports-oriented family. So, I wasn't aware that you could have an entire livelihood off of a sport. So when they would say, `Oh, he plays baseball,' I always think, `Oh, I wonder what else he does' - like `that's a nice hobby - but what does he really do?"
