Aishwarya Rai blessed with a baby girl

Aishwarya Rai arrives at the Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai

After the big announcement made by Amitabh Bachchan about Ash’s pregnancy on Twitter, a moment of bigger announcement has finally arrived! The sparkling beauty Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan today became proud parents of a baby girl. The baby was born at the private Seven Hills Hospital in the western Mumbai suburb of Andheri on Wednesday morning.

Proud grandfather, Bollywood legend Amitabh, tweeted his joy at the new arrival: “A dada ji (a grandfather)…Ecstatic!”, calling his new granddaughter “the cutest baby girl”. Post the big news Twitter has been flooded with wishes for the Bachchan family and Amitabh was quick to that all his friends and well-wishers for their wishes.

Hospital sources said the delivery was normal and the mother and the baby were doing fine. Aishwarya Bachchan checked into the Seven Hills Hospital in Marol, a north-western suburb of Mumbai, on Monday night. The Bachchans chose a suburban hospital for the delivery, side stepping the more popular celebrity choices such as the Breach Candy Hospital, presumably to avoid media glare. Aishwarya, developed labour pains around 4 a.m. and was taken to the labour room where the delivery took place after nearly six hours.

Often called the “queen of Bollywood”, Aishwarya, 38, married Abhishek, 35, in 2007, forging the ultimate Bollywood dynasty and rumours about her pregnancy had been doing the rounds ever since.

Ash’s pregnancy grabbed the headlines since June when Amitabh Bachchan announced the pregnancy of his daughter-in-law. The bookies had been betting on the possible day of the arrival of Aishwarya’s baby. First, it was speculated that the Bachchans would go for C-section delivery for the baby to be born on the unique date of 11.11.11. But that was strongly denied by the Bachchan family. According to reports, bookies had bet 1.5 billion rupees (around $30m) on whether Aishwarya would deliver on 11 November or not. Then it was hoped that the child would come on November 14, the Children’s Day.