Actor Heinz Hoenig (71) has been enjoying fresh fatherly joy for almost two weeks – on October 13 he and his wife Annika Kärsten-Hoenig (37) became the parents of son Jianni. In an interview with “Frau im Spiegel”, however, Hoenig revealed that it was anything but an easy birth.

The first moment of shock was on the way to the hospital when one of the tires on her car burst. A mutual friend then drove the parents-to-be to the clinic. Annika lay there in labor for a total of 13 hours before little Jianni wanted to be born. But she wasn’t over it yet. Because the placenta did not detach, an operation had to be performed, during which the new mother is said to have lost two liters of blood. Hoenig was very “afraid for my beloved wife,” as he told the magazine.

Luckily, mother and child are now doing well and the couple can look forward to “the best present after all the hard hours”. After son Juliano (2), it is the second child of the two, Hoenig has a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. Kärsten-Hoenig also brought another daughter into the relationship.