When it came time to give birth to her second daughter, Serena Williams wanted to go in prepared.
Speaking to Glamour for their new issue, the tennis icon, 43, opened up about her decision to have a cesarean section when welcoming daughter Adira, now 13 months. Although she said she wouldn’t miss giving birth naturally, she admitted that a part of her was sad to not go through the experience again.
Of giving birth naturally, Williams says, “Looking back, I’ll never have that moment again. For whatever weird reason, that kind of makes me a little sad, but that’s probably a party of one.”
“This time I went in with a plan. I like to say I put my best effort out there, and this was no different,” she says of welcoming daughter Adira. “I literally thought about it as a Grand Slam: ‘How can I succeed?'”
Williams shares Adira and daughter Olympia, 6, with husband Alexis Ohanian, 41.
In August, Williams shared her admiration for both of her daughters as her youngest turned 1. The proud mom of two posted a few throwback snaps on Instagram of herself with Olympia from her maternity shoot before welcoming Adira.
The mother-daughter duo could be seen smiling in a bed of flowers wearing matching pink flowy dresses. “Olympia is always there for me,” Williams said in her caption. “Before having a second child, I always wondered, ‘how could I love anything as much as I love @olympiaohanian?'”
She continued, “Then Adira came along … she is so special, so fun, so funny, so loving, so sweet and so strong!!! You see, God makes your heart get bigger. Because my love for Olympia has not dimmed. My heart simply now is doubled the size and I have a greater capacity to love more!”
Speaking to PEOPLE in May, Ohanian shared that he’s excited to see his younger daughter start to get her footing, noting it’s “fun because she’s getting more mobile.”
“She’s able to have a lot more fun with her sister in terms of playing. You can already see the interactions between them. It’s a big age gap, and Olympia has a little bit of that maternal spirit. She’s like, ‘This is my 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢,’ and it’s great to see them together,” Ohanian shared.
“They play and sort wrestle and all that. We’re very lucky because Adira’s got a great personality and Olympia does too, plus she’s so excited to be a big sis. So seeing the two of them interact with each other has been a special kind of fun. Adira’s getting more mobile and ore vocal, and it’s only going to get even more fun.”
He joked, “I guess at some point they’re going to fight over things, but for now, let me live in bliss.”
