Having been out of the spotlight for about a year, Serena Williams appears to be making news in recent times. A few days ago, the 40-year-old tennis player announced her comeback to professional tennis on a social media platform.
The 23-times-Grand-Slam winner confirmed in a video that she would be playing in the Wimbledon championships this year, which is scheduled to start in June.
Serena had to withdraw from multiple tennis tournaments owing to her hamstring injury sustained at the Wimbledon championship 2022.
Apart from that, Williams has been active in other activities such as mental-health awareness along with Prince Harry. Recently, she opened up about how she faced childbirth issues while giving birth to her first daughter, Olympia.
Serena Williams shared how the childbirth changed her view of tennis
During an interview, Serena spoke about what all she went through to escape death while delivering her first daughter.
“Giving birth to my baby, it turned out, was a test for how loud and how often I would have to call out before I was finally heard,” Williams stated.
Further, elucidating on the problems she faced- “The contractions were coming harder and faster. With each one, my baby’s heart rate plummeted. I was scared. Every time the baby’s heart rate dropped, the nurses would come in and tell me to turn onto my side. The baby’s heart rate would go back up and everything seemed fine.”
In addition to that, Serena shared how it would go ‘so forth’ and how she avoided epidural during the phase.
Moreover, when the doctor told her about the need for C-section, Williams thought about her previous surgeries and how she could endure the current one.
Opening up regarding her nervousness about meeting her daughter, Serena shared- “Throughout my pregnancy, I’d never felt a connection with her. It’s something people don’t usually talk about.”
However, Williams did feel better about it when her other friends shared her feeling too.
“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. I couldn’t stop staring at her, my Olympia,” Serena stated.
Delivering her daughter almost killed Serena
Besides, her real ordeal started after the delivery when she had ‘racking coughs’ in addition to ‘sharp pains’ all over.
Describing her suffering, Williams said-“I was coughing because I had an embolism, a clot in one of my arteries. The doctors would also discover a hematoma, a collection of blood outside the blood vessels, in my abdomen, then even more clots that had to be kept from traveling to my lungs.”
After four such surgeries to remove clots, Serena Williams escaped her near-death situation. She credited the success to having been heard and treated well. Also, she had difficulty walking when she returned home, which was eventually recovered with the support of her family members.