By Brooks Welch
In a personal essay for Elle, tennis star Serena Williams penned an account of her near-death birthing experience and revealed that she initially didn’t form a connection with her daughter, now 4, until after she gave birth.
“I was nervous about meeting my baby. Throughout my pregnancy, I’d never felt a connection with her,” Williams wrote. “While I loved being pregnant, I didn’t have that amazing ‘Oh my God,’ this is my baby moment, ever. It’s something people don’t usually talk about, because we’re supposed to be in love from the first second.”
“Yes, I was a lioness who would protect her baby at any cost, but I wasn’t gushing over her,” she continued. “I kept waiting to feel like I knew her during pregnancy, but the feeling never came. Some of my mom friends told me they didn’t feel the connection in the womb either, which made me feel better, but still, I longed for it.”
As reported by People, Williams’ birth experience wasn’t an easy one. The tennis champion was rushed into an emergency cesarean section, and after the delivery, a coughing fit made her wound reopen and led doctors to discover multiple, life-threatening blood clots in her body.
Williams said the connection finally came after giving birth to Olympia in September 2017.
“When I finally saw her — and I just knew it was going to be a girl, that was one thing I knew about her before we even had it confirmed — I loved her right away,” Williams wrote in her essay. “It wasn’t exactly instantaneous, but it was there, and from that seed, it grew. I couldn’t stop staring at her, my Olympia.”
“Despite my body’s wreckage—and the fact that I couldn’t get in much breastfeeding—connecting with Olympia at long last was amazing; it was both the reward and the validation for all I’d been through,” she told Elle. “I went from not being able to really imagine her in the womb to us being completely inseparable. I still feel like I have to be around her for every day of her life, as much as possible. I’m anxious when I’m not around her. Honestly, it’s a little much.”
Read full Elle essay here.