A lot of people believe that the most difficult job in the world is not being a doctor, a lawyer, or anything else. It is being a mother. It is a job without a salary but has a lifetime contract. There is no such thing as habit day-offs because it is a job where you have to work 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Not a single person in this world would understand how difficult it is to become a mother unless they become one. One of the most famous and the most dedicated athletes of all time, Serena Williams, have shared her early stages of motherhood in such as inspirational way, especially having to go through rough times this easy after almost dying while giving birth to her firstborn, continue reading to find out more.
From An Athlete To A Mother
Williams is known to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She has managed to prove herself by competing all over the world and winning Grand Slam titles in almost everything.
The 36-year-old tennis champ has been dubbed as the No. 1 Tennis player in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association. She also represents the United States in the Olympics and has managed to take home Gold Medals four times.
However, Williams had to take a break from her professional life to take one of the biggest steps of her life and that is becoming a mom and a wife. In 2016, she got engaged to Alexis Ohanian who is a co-founder of the social news site Reddit and on April of 2017, she posted a photo on Snapchat showing her midsection that has a caption of ’20 weeks’.
This is when people started speculating that the tennis player is, in fact, expecting, which has been confirmed by her spokesperson. Later that year she gave birth to a baby girl named Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. and she got married to her fiancé two months after giving birth.
It hasn’t been an easy road for Williams. There are some women who give birth so easily and there are some who would take more than a day of labor. Because of the complications that Williams had to go through while giving birth, she considers herself lucky to still be able and have the change to take care of her now 5-month-old daughter Olympia. This has pushed her to share her scary story to be able to inspire women like her on an opinion article with CNN.
Williams Shares Life-Threatening Journey to Motherhood
The 36-year-old Olympian admitted that she had an easy pregnancy which is why she didn’t think that she would have a hard time delivering her baby girl. She had to go through C-section because her daughter’s heart rate had been unstable the entire time during contractions.
Williams talked about how the surgery itself went well and that both she and her baby were fine, at least that’s what she thought at first because the next couple of days obviously meant otherwise. She revealed that she has a history of pulmonary embolism, which is a case wherein some arteries inside the lungs get blocked because of a blood clot.
This was said to have been the beginning of her life-threatening journey. She had struggled with her stitches opening because of coughing too much since she’s been having short breaths from embolism then she also had to undergo multiple surgeries because of the hematoma that has been found in her abdomen. Because of that, she had to spend the very first month of motherhood in bed, and she is still grateful for making it through despite multiple complications that she had to endure.
Williams is not the only woman who had to go through this much during or after giving birth, unfortunately, some of them are not fortunate enough to make it. According to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, millions of women all over the globe die from childbirth complications, especially to poor countries because they don’t have access to drugs, doctors and health facilities.
UNICEF even said that 2.6 million newborns die as well because of the same problem, which is why Williams felt the need to use her story to inspire people to help as well as to push women to become stronger.