-New Urban SPORTS- First-Time Mom & Tennis Star Serena Williams Debuts Daughter Alexis Olympia, Talks Near Death Trauma with Delivery & Sets Sights on her Next Grand Slam

via Instagram @serenawilliams

With four Olympic gold medals and 23 Grand Slam titles to her name, Serena Williams is undoubtedly the greatest tennis player in the world today. But as of winter 2017, the 36-year-old Olympian can can now add a different title to her resumé:  New Mom. Come February, Serena will grace the cover of Vogue magazine with her daughter, as she introduces the world to little Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.- who at three months, is the youngest (and arguably the cutest!) Vogue cover model in the magazine's history. Fun fact:  Baby Alexis (whom husband & dad Alexis Ohanian refers to as "Jr.") can already add a Grand Slam win to her own list; the little one was peacefully resting in utero while mom won her 23rd Grand Slam against her auntie Venus Williams (Serena's sister) in spring of last year.

In Williams's cover story for Vogue, she discusses life as a new mom and wife,  and her career -which the Vogue cover sells as her career “comeback,” interview, which is funny because she never went away— she simply paused at a point in he pregnancy to give birth. Williams generally discussed how new mom duties will affect her life plans overall.

The Winning Mom-to-Be: Taking #23 During 2017's
Grand Slam  Against Big Sister Venus Williams

Outside of making sports history by winning a record-breaking 23 Slam titles (the last while pregnant with Alexis), one of the more striking parts of Williams journey to new motherhood discusses the days that followed Alexis's birth, where ironically, she nearly died after an emergency C-section following what had been a happy,textbook pregnancy. After delivery, Williams encountered what is often a fatal complication with C-sections: blood clots.  Blood clots have been a previous medical issue in Serena's background she was all too familiar with. Adding to her difficulties,  the athlete had to fight to be heard and taken seriously by medical caretakers and staffers to get correct treatment, Vogue reports:

"Though she had an enviably easy pregnancy, what followed was the greatest medical ordeal of a life that has been punctuated by them. Olympia was born by emergency C-section after her heart rate dove dangerously low during contractions. The surgery went off without a hitch....

 ...The next day, while recovering in the hospital, Serena suddenly felt short of breath. Because of her history of blood clots, and because she was off her daily anticoagulant (blood thinner) regimen due to the recent surgery, she immediately assumed she was having another pulmonary embolism. (Serena lives in fear of blood clots.) She walked out of the hospital room so her mother wouldn’t worry and told the nearest nurse, between gasps, that she needed a CT scan with contrast and IV heparin (a blood thinner) right away. The nurse thought her pain medicine might be making her confused. But Serena insisted, and soon enough a doctor was performing an ultrasound of her legs. “I was like, a Doppler? I told you, I need a CT scan and a heparin drip,” she remembers telling the team. The ultrasound revealed nothing, so they sent her for the CT, and sure enough, several small blood clots had settled in her lungs. Minutes later she was on the drip. “I was like, listen to Dr. Williams!” 

Unfortunately this was just the first of many severe complications over a six-day medical nightmare. Her fresh C-section wound popped open.   Then, on being returned to surgery, doctors found that a large hematoma (solid swelling of clotted blood) had flooded her abdomen. She was returned for yet another surgery to have a filter inserted into a major vein, in order to prevent more clots from dislodging and traveling into her lungs. After the initial week of lifesaving operations, she spent the first six weeks of motherhood unable to get out of bed. Not being able to do much of anything in such a fragile physical state,  “I was happy to change diapers...”, the new mom recollects.

“We’re not spending a day apart until she’s eighteen,” Serena says of her daughter. “To be honest, there’s something really attractive about the idea of moving to San Francisco and just being a mom...” then she adds,

“But not yet. Maybe this goes without saying, but it needs to be said in a powerful way: I absolutely want more Grand Slams. I’m well aware of the record books, unfortunately. It’s not a secret that I have my sights on 25.”  

At present, Serena holds the world's #2 spot for most Grand Slam singles titles in women's tennis, surpassing her legendary predecessors Steffi Graf (22 wins), Martina Navratilova (18 wins), and Chris Evert (18 wins).  The world-record holder at 24 wins is retired Australian athlete Margret Court, who is now a Christian minister in Perth at age 75.  Serena continues, 

 “...actually, I think having a baby might help. When I’m too anxious I lose matches, and I feel like a lot of that anxiety disappeared when Olympia was born.... Knowing I’ve got this beautiful baby to go home to makes me feel like I don’t have to play another match. I don’t need the money or the titles or the prestige. I want them, but I don’t need them.

Serena Williams and daughter Alexis Olympia will make their first joint Vogue cover this coming February, 2018.