Tennis pro Serena Williams has opened up about her harrowing birth experience in 2017. She takes us through her entire pregnancy journey from when she found out she was pregnant two days before the Australian Open to needing multiple surgeries to remove blood clots that were discovered after her caesarean section.
In an essay she wrote for Elle she went into detail of how her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. was born and how her body dealt with being pregnant after being an athlete for her entire life.
Williams described herself as being “one of those women who like being pregnant”, as her first trimester only brought headaches and a metallic taste in her mouth, and she was receiving good attention from the media for a change. “I’m used to getting negative attention from the press and critics, but this was different”, she wrote.
Serena was very prepared to have her baby as she “had taken every birthing class that the hospital had to offer”. She wanted to have a September baby and waited as long as she could to go into hospital. On August 31 she went into the hospital to be induced.
The sporting star went on to explain how she loved the feeling of her body preparing to have the baby. “I was enjoying it, the work of labour… I loved the cramps. I loved feeling my body trying to push the baby out”.
Williams did not have an epidural and instead used her breath and techniques she learned at her birthing classes.
With each contraction that Serena had, her baby’s heart rate dropped. Nurses put her on her side and the baby’s heart rate would go back up. This happened over and over again until a doctor told Serena that she needed to have an emergency C-section. “We went from this intense, seemingly endless process to a clear plan for bringing this baby into the world”.
Williams explains that she discovered she had blood clots in her lungs in 2010 and was worried that she had not been put on a blood thinning drip after her labour. For fear of causing her C-section scar to bleed, nurses were against it. At this stage Serena was in excruciating pain, couldn’t move her legs or back, and could not stop coughing, which led to her C-section wound bursting.
“I went into my first surgery after the C-section to get restitched”. After this surgery, it was discovered that Serena had an embolism, a clot in the arteries, as well as a hematoma, a collection of blood outside of the blood vessels in Serena’s abdomen.
After a second surgery, Williams woke up surrounded by her parents and in-laws, “I’m dying, I’m dying. Oh my God”, was all she could think while her family tried to talk to her.
Williams pleaded with a nurse to give her a CAT scan of her lungs but the nurse said "I think all this medicine is making you talk crazy". Eventually after fighting with the nurse, a doctor gave Serena the CAT scan and found a blood clot in her lungs. “They needed to insert a filter in my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart”. Surgery number three was complete. Then another blood clot was found which meant the tennis champion needed a fourth surgery.
After a week, Williams made it home with 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”.
“In the U.S., Black women are nearly three times more likely to die during or after childbirth than their while counterparts. Many of these deaths are considered by experts to be preventable. Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me”.
Fans shared their thoughts on Serena’s story on Twitter with one saying, “Serena is a heroine and that’s just it”. Another added, “terrifying to read. So glad it all worked out”.
With a third stating, “Serena is very strong. She always was and she still is”.
