Serena Williams opens up about her near-death experience during daughter Olympia’s birth

 Serena Williams  is letting fans in on her traumatic childbirth experience.

In a personal essay for Elle, the tennis legend opened up about her experience with giving birth to her daughter, Olympia. Williams also reveals that she didnt’t have a “connection” with the 4-year-old, who she shares with husband Alexis Ohanian, throughout her pregnancy.

“I was nervous about meeting my baby,” the 23-time Grand Slam champion admits in her essay. “Throughout my pregnancy, I’d never felt a connection with her. 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.”

She went on to say that she wasn’t “gushing” over her daughter, waiting to feel like she knew her over that entire 9 month period--but that feeling didn’t come until she gave 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,” she continued. “It wasn’t exactly instantaneous, but it was there, and from that seed, it grew. I couldn’t stop staring at her, my Olympia.”

Unfortunately, once Serena finally able to hold her child, things took a turn for the worse.

After being rushed into an emergency C-section when the baby’s heart rate kept dropping, Williams also had to demand additional medical attention after her stitches were reopened due to an uncontrollable cough after she gave birth.

“I spoke to the nurse,” the tennis star wrote. “I told her: ‘I need to have a CAT scan of my lungs bilaterally, and then I need to be on my heparin drip.‘ She said, ‘I think all this medicine is making you talk crazy.’ I said, ‘No, I’m telling you what I need: I need the scan immediately. And I need it to be done with dye.‘”

Because of Serena’s persistence, the nurse called the doctor and they found that she had a blood clot in her lungs that needed to be broken up before it reached her heart.

Having to endure a total of four surgeries, the sports star was finally able to leave the hospital a week after giving birth.

“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.”