Birthday picked to honor the lost

ST. PETERSBURG - When Brian Jr. gets old enough, they will explain his birthday.

"We wanted to bring a new life into the world on a day we lost so many," said Brian Diehl, 34, of St. Petersburg.

Diehl and his wife, Kimberly, 23, decided to have their baby boy at 8 a.m. today at St. Petersburg General Hospital.

Kimberly had a difficult time delivering her 5-year-old son, Timothy, and opted to have a Cesarean section for this birth. Her due date was Sept. 21, but doctors said the couple could choose a date up to 10 days prior. They picked Sept. 11.

"So many people were killed that day for no reason," Kimberly Diehl said. "We decided he would be the best way to try and remember those people."

Brian Diehl grew up in Bethpage, N.Y., and knows about six people who worked in the World Trade Center. None was injured during the attacks, but Diehl spent the afternoon worrying and wondering about friends. He sat beside the television at Harley-Davidson in St. Petersburg, where he works.

He will drive his wife to the hospital at 5 a.m. today to prepare for surgery. Diehl has four children from a previous marriage. This will be their first child together.

Nurses at the St. Petersburg hospital said they were not aware of other couples specifically requesting today for delivery. Additionally, a spokeswoman at Bayfront Medical Center said that a typical number of deliveries had been scheduled for today and that the hospital had not received specific requests for Sept. 11.

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