Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian just revealed the sex of their second baby—in a pretty fantastic way. People reports the couple employed a drone display to find out whether daughter Olympia will have a little brother or a little sister—and (spoiler alert) it’s a girl!
Williams arrived at her “baby shower-slash-gender reveal” party leaving no doubt that she was “team pink,” as she put it, wearing a pink and white skirt and top that accentuated her baby bump, People reports.
“I’m a little nervous because I don’t have any contingency plan if it turns out to be a boy,” she said in a video of the party posted to YouTube yesterday.
The fete’s theme was “Our Next Great Adventure” and was decorated with a rainbow-colored balloon arch; the outdoor bash included dancing, a dunk tank, and “a whole lot of hugging as the hours whittled away,” People writes.
As for the drone display, Williams didn’t know it was going to happen: “Rather than the standard pink cake for a girl and blue cake for a boy, Ohanian ordered a yellow cake to throw off the tennis superstar,” People reports.
“I’m doing this because I want to troll her and Olympia into thinking that this is the reveal of Jelly Bean,” he said, referring to the apparent pet name of baby No. 2. “She will cut into this cake and probably be disappointed and hopefully appreciate my troll. But we’ll see. I don’t know if she’s going to be professional about it. She might see this cake and come out, roll her eyes, and say, ‘This guy had one job and he gave me a god—n cake gender reveal.’ But we’ll see. There’s a reveal after the reveal.”
“Williams cut into the cake, saw that it was yellow, smiled, put it on a plate…and moved to smoosh it right into Alexis’ face,” People reports.
“We are actually going to reveal Jelly Bean’s sex,” Ohanian said. “The way we’re going to do it, though, is with a little style and some spectacular lights.” He then asked the party’s DJ to play music and “draw attention to the heavens,” and, after some oohing and ahhing from the party’s guests, drones lit up the sky and spelled out “Girl!” As their guests applauded and cheered, the family of three shouted with joy.
Williams revealed her second pregnancy at the Met Gala in May and posted on Instagram “Was so excited when Anna Wintour invited the 3 of us to the Met Gala.” The news came after an essay she wrote for Vogue last year, where she shared her hopes of adding another child to her family. She opened up about how she “never thought about having kids” when she began her tennis career.
“There were times when I’ve wondered if I should ever bring kids into this world, with all its problems,” Williams wrote. “I was never that confident or comfortable around babies or children, and I figured that if I ever did have a baby, I would have people taking care of it 24/7.”
In the essay, in which she announced her decision to retire from professional tennis, Williams shared how Olympia prayed for a baby sister and often said she wanted to be a big sister. “In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child, and we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that whenever we’re ready, we can add to our family,” she wrote. “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
Williams said she was ready to step away: “The way I see it, I should have had 30-plus Grand Slams,” she wrote. “I had my chances after coming back from giving birth. I went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a Grand Slam final. I played while breastfeeding. I played through postpartum depression. But I didn’t get there. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually, it’s extraordinary. But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis resume and building my family, I choose the latter.”
