From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge
NO SOUND OF WEDDING BELLS YET for Sylvester Stallone and his fiancée, model Jennifer Flavin, but for now friends and family will settle for the happy noises of a gurgling baby. At 12:29 a.m. on Aug. 27, the arrival of Sophia Rose Stallone reminded Sly, 50, and Flavin, 28, that there is more to life than rocky romance (their eight-year relationship is on again after a split in 1994) or, for that matter, Rocky. Said the muscular star: "I feel like I've been reborn." Flavin's mother, Shirley, a grandmother of six who flew in from her San Fernando Valley, Calif., home to be with Jennifer during the birth, seconds the notion. "Sophia is definitely a Stallone," she says. "She has Sly's nose, mouth and ears."

From her mother she got beautiful eyes—and lots of pushing during a 12-hour labor. While Stallone was on a private jet en route from New Jersey, where he has been shooting Copland, Flavin was in South Miami Hospital learning why they call it labor. "It was pretty traumatic for Jennifer," says her mother of the birth of the 7-lb. 4-oz. baby, "but she got a beautiful daughter out of it." At her side through most of the ordeal was Stallone, who has two sons, Sage, 20, and Seargeoh, 17, from his marriage to first wife Sasha. (He was married to actress Brigitte Nielsen from 1985 to 1987.) The actor, as Flavin's obstetrician Dr. Charles Kalstone told the Miami Herald, was eager to hold his child. "They seemed to bond well," he said.

They also ate well. With Sophia nursed and sleeping, her family dined in Flavin's room on a catered lobster dinner. Later, back at their Miami mansion, Stallone had no time to notice all the flowers—including roses from Gloria Estefan. "That first night," says a family member, "Sly was up all night carrying Sophia around." Flavin has no plans to hire help. "All she wants to do," says her mother, "is stay home and be a mom." With Rambo changing diapers, who needs a nanny anyway?