An emotional Jimmy Kimmel had both positive and scary news for his viewers on Monday about his newborn son.
"I try not to get emotional, but it was a scary story," the tearful late-night host said in his opening monologue. "But before I go into it, I want you to know that it has a happy ending."
Kimmel went on to say that William "Billy" Kimmel, who was born on Friday, April 21, to Jimmy and his wife Molly McNearney had successful open heart surgery at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and is now home with his family.
"He appeared to be a normal, healthy baby until about three hours after he was born," Kimmel said, when a very attentive nurse at Cedars-Sinai Hospital heard a murmur in his heart and saw he was purple.
"It's a terrifying thing, my wife is in the recovery room and she has no idea what is going on, and I am standing in the middle of a lot of worried-looking people," he continued.
Specialists quickly diagnosed that Billy was born with a heart disease that blocked his pulmonary valve. Kimmel's second child then underwent emergency surgery, "they did some magic that I couldn't even begin to explain," he said. "It was a success, and it was the longest three hours of my life."
Billy will have to have another surgery in around six months, and then a third in his teens, Kimmel said, as he shared a photo of his son. "Poor kid, not only did he get a bad heart, he got my face."
He is now home with his family, the proud father shared, "he's eating, sleeping and he peed on his mother."
Kimmel is now on paternity leave for the week while his friends guest-host the show. He also asked that donations be made to Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
