"Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family," she wrote. "I don't think it's fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn't be writing this because I'd be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labour of expanding our family.
"I went from a C-section to a second pulmonary embolism to a grand slam final. I played while breastfeeding. I played through post-partum depression," she wrote in her Vogue piece.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion said that now, at the age of 41 and after 27 years playing tennis, "Something's got to give."
I don't know if there is a mother who can read that and not instinctively nod in agreement. Even if your career is not as physically demanding as being a seemingly superhuman tennis champion, the dichotomy of the mother and the "career woman" is a constant tug-of-war for many working mums - and not something that is at all restricted to the world of high-performing sports.
Serena has never hidden that the juggle was, at times, hard to handle and that she often suffered from the all-too-familiar "mum guilt". How often do you hear working dads talking about "dad guilt"?
While the biological constraints of motherhood are fairly easy to grasp, the sociocultural aspects that hold women back appear, for many, less so. Unlike Serena, I have never won a Grand Slam but, like Serena, I am the mother of a 5-year-old girl. I have lost count of how many times, over the years, I've been asked who's looking after my child while I'm out but I can tell you how many times my daughter's father has had to answer the same question: zero.
"Society makes women think they can have everything all at once — be the best hands-on-mum and at the top of the field," Sherie Randolph, a history professor at Georgia Tech and founder of a black feminist think tank who's working on a book about African American mothers, told AP.
"But that just is not borne out in reality for most women. What ends up happening is that working mothers are just worn out and overworked trying to labour at the highest level of two demanding jobs — motherhood and their profession."
Serena Williams has been fighting for gender equality, in and off the courts, her entire life. As she bids farewells to the tennis court to hopefully birth another small human, she should keep in mind she is leaving the world of tennis a whole lot better than she found it.
And even as she parts ways with that world, she knows so well, she's leaving her mark by spelling out the reality of the female players that came before her, hoping for better outcomes for those who succeed her.
Serena's essay reads like a beautiful love letter to tennis - and an even more beautiful love letter to motherhood. Serena, one of the best athletes of all time, is, above all else, a mum. As hard as it is for her, her career comes second.
That is the reality for many women.
And if even superhuman Serena feels she can't truly have it all, what hope is there for any of us mere mortals?
