Serena Williams Reveals She Didn’t Feel a ‘Connection’ with Her Daughter During Pregnancy: ‘I Longed for It’
Serena Williams is opening up about the first moments after her daughter Olympia was born.
In a personal essay for Elle, the 40-year-old tennis icon shared a few interesting details about her childbirth experience and disclosed that she initially didn’t establish a connection with her daughter, who is 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.”
Williams expressed how her connection came after she gave birth to Olympia.
“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.”
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“I spent the night in the hospital with my baby in the room. When I woke up, she was nestled in my arms. The rest of my body was paralyzed. I couldn’t get out of bed because my legs were still numb, but it didn’t matter. Alexis and I sat there, alone with our new baby. It was surreal to feel the presence of this third person in the room,” she added.
Williams also spoke on the troubles she went through trying to get her body back to normal following the pregnancy.
“My whole life I’ve been physically pushing my body to the limits,” she shared. “And this is the one time where I couldn’t control anything. I couldn’t push my body. My body pushed to its maximum. That was so hard.”