Good things come to those who wait! Bollywood star Tina Sugandh and husband Tarz Ludwigsen wanted nothing more than to start a family after they got married. But as fans saw on Bravo’s reality show Newlyweds: The First Year, the “let’s have a baby” track was a rocky one for the pair. Two miscarriages later, though, the couple are the proud parents of a healthy baby boy, Tarz David Sugandh — and Us Weekly has the exclusive first photo!
Tarz David — “Tarzie” for short — was born in Loma Linda, Calif., on June 4, 2013, six weeks before Tina’s scheduled due date. The pregnancy was a breeze, she and Tarz tell Us exclusively, but the delivery was incredibly emotional.
“She woke me up at 3:30 in the morning because she thought she just wet the bed!” Tarz recalls of the moment his wife’s water broke. Per their doctor’s instructions, they headed to the hospital. “Everything was fine,” he says.
And then it wasn’t. “When she was five centimeters, his heart rate started dropping,” Tarz explains. “I guess that happens sometimes when the umbilical cord gets wrapped around the baby. The doctor immediately called an emergency C-section. Suddenly, a team of 10 to 12 people were surrounding her.”
Tarz wasn’t allowed into the surgical unit, so Tina had to go through the experience solo. “I was sitting alone in the middle of the hallway,” he tells Us. “It was a horrible feeling not knowing what was going on. It was brutal. I just thought about how awful it was that she was alone in there going through that. I could almost cry just thinking about it now.”
“Him not being there was the worst,” Tina pipes in. “Then suddenly I was handed this baby, and it was so surreal!”
In the best way possible, of course. “He’s got spiky black hair,” Tina tells Us of her son. “His hands and feet are giant! I think he has Tarz’s lips and he has my hair.”
The name was her husband’s idea, but she “loved it right away,” she says. David is Tarz’s father’s name, and Sugandh is Tina’s family’s name. “I grew up performing with my family, the Sugandh family, and we’d tour every weekend performing Bollywood music. It was an amazing experience throughout my childhood,” the Bollywood actress explains of why the baby has her last name instead of Tarz’s. “For what it represents, I’m proud of our journey and the team that we were.”
Tarzie is less than a month old, but the couple are already thinking about some younger siblings for him. Though Tina jokes that they want 14 kids, her husband says they’re aiming for three or four — with at least one daughter.
“Let’s say we have another boy next — we’re going to have a third,” Tina says. “We will keep trying until we get a girl! That’s my plan. I honestly just really, really miss my mom [Geeta Sugandh, who died of cancer in 2008] — she was my life, and we’d giggle and laugh and sing every day, and I’d love to recreate that with my daughter.”
