Martina Navratilova made public a few months ago that she suffered from throat and breast cancer. Quite a setback for the former tennis player, winner of nine Wimblendon singles titles, who at 66 saw how all of her dreams and future plans were undermined because of her illness. Above all, her wishes to become her mother together with her partner, Julia Lemigova, since suffering from cancer did not make her an ideal candidate to adopt a child.
The former tennis player also announced that her cancer was in remission, and that specialists had already confirmed that she was "practically free of cancer." Great news after a few months of agony and not seeing beyond the next day. She has confirmed this in an extensive interview with the British journalist Piers Morgan, where she has spoken about how she has felt with this liberating diagnosis and her dreams of being a mother.
The tennis champion will have to undergo preventative chest radiation for two weeks, but after that final treatment, she should be able to resume her normal routines. It has not been an easy thing, because although the specialists warned her that it was an easy-to-treat cancer, the athlete admits that she went into "total panic" for three days, thinking that she was not going to see "next Christmas". .
"Who has two cancers at the same time? I've never been a person to give up, but this is ridiculous," he said, trying to make things funny. "The list of things I wanted to do came to my head," the tennis player, born in the former Czechoslovakia, began by explaining, giving an example of how things look at that time: "This may sound very superficial, but I was in plan: 'okay, what awesome car do I really want to drive if I only have a year to live?'"
But not only about the things he would like to do in his life for the last time, but also about his plans to become a mother with his wife, Julia Lemigova, his longtime girlfriend, whom he married in 2014 in New York.
"I think adoption was a good idea for a while, but I think this has made it clear: I'm not the youngest anymore and I don't want to be the grandmother of the park," the former tennis player was honest, quickly adding: " Forget that part, I don't think there's enough space right now for this to happen."
Navratilova explained that her plans had been "definitely" postponed, and she didn't think they were going to happen: "I think it's too complicated and the energy... right now I don't have much," she lamented, unable to avoid tears.
His wife, Julia, also talked about her maternity plans on the television show she stars in, The Real Housewives of Miami. In the program, the former model said she was clear about her priorities.
"When you adopt a child, everything has to be about the child and, for now, everything is for Martina and for her to get well," Lemigova explained, adding that her adoption plans were on hold, "We thought the agency would let us I was going to call any minute with the big news that we were having a baby... Instead, we're fighting two cancers, as if one wasn't enough."
The couple already share the responsibility of being mothers, since Julia has two daughters: Victoria, 22, and Emma, 15; of her relationship with Christian Courtin-Clarins, owner of the Clarins beauty empire. The former model was also the mother of a child, Maximilian, the result of her relationship with the financier Édouard Stern, who tragically died of sudden death when he was just a baby.
