When did Kim Kardashian’s doctor refuse to do IVF for the reality TV star? After her first two complicated prgenancies, her doctors thought it would be medical malpractice to have her undergo the process again. Kardashian opened up about her struggles with fertility and pregnancy, talking about the almost-life-threatening situation she was in.
Sharing a candid video for her Shapewear brand, SKIMS, Kardashian spoke about the difficulties she faced during her pregnancy—it involved extreme sickness, an emergency labor, and a pre-mature delivery.
“When I was pregnant with my daughter North, I had a condition called preeclampsia or toxemia, which is basically when the mum’s organs start to shut down,” she said.
“The only way to get rid of that is to deliver the baby. At 34 and a half weeks, I had to go into emergency labor—they induced me. North was four pounds. She was almost six weeks early.”
What caused Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy complications?
After the delivery of her baby, Kardashian said her placenta did not come out but instead, it started to grow in her uterus, which could have been life-threatening. “That is what women die from in childbirth,” Kim says.
She suffered from placenta accreta—a condition in which “the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall,” she wrote on her website.
After the delivery of her baby, the placenta inside her body had to be surgically excised. “It was the most painful experience of my life!” Kim said.
“I still had a piece of placenta attached inside of me and I had to have surgery to remove it. Then I had another surgery to remove the scar tissue. This was all preventing me from getting pregnant the second time around.”
While their first baby, North, was conceived naturally, Kim underwent IVF the second time, which was not immediately successful.
However, eventually the treatment brought results and she was able to get pregnant. The second pregnancy was again difficult.
“After my daughter was born, I still continued to do the process of freezing my eggs. I was able to get pregnant through that with my son Saint, and then I had two embryos left,” she said. “I had the same condition, same awful delivery that I had with my first daughter.”
When Kardashian’s doctors refused to do IVF again
Carrying the baby caused so much damage that Kardashian had to undergo multiple surgeries to restore her body post-pregnancy.
“I had to have five different operations within a year and a half to fix the damage that all of that did on the inside,” she said.
“But on the outside I was filming, and photoshoots… I asked my doctors, “Can I do it one more time?” And they were like, “We won’t even put an embryo in you—that would be like malpractice”.”
Despite the terrifying experience with both her pregnancies, Kim and Kanye wanted to have more children but since Kardashian’s doctors refused to do IVF again for her, they had to turn to surrogacy.
Kim and Kanye children
Kim and Kanye have four children—North West, born June 15, 2013, Saint West, born December 5, 2015, Chicago West, born January 15, 2018, and Psalm West, born May 9, 2019. Below is the Kardashian-West family Christmas card for 2019.
Chicago and Psalm were both brought into this world with the help of a surrogate, using the two embryos that Kim had frozen from her earlier IVF cycle.
“I’m so thankful for my beautiful kids, no matter how they came to me — they came to me. I’m so thankful for surrogates. I’m really thankful for my family. I grew up with so many siblings,” said the Keeping up with the Kardashians star.
“I just loved being in a big environment. I would have gone through the same pain and back for the result of having my babies. It was all worth it.”
More children for Kim and Kanye?
Kim said she’s not planning to expand her family any further.
“I’m definitely done though and feel four is my limit. I believe that everyone needs so much attention and I need to be available to give it to everyone,” she said
However, her husband Kanye appeared on The Late Late Show later, where he expressed to host James Corden, his desire to have “seven kids.”
“The richest thing that you can have is as many children as possible,” he said.
Kim and Kanye divorce
Unfortunately, during the COVID pandemic lockdowns, in February 2021, Kim and Kanye filed for divorce.
Kim spoke about Kanye’s bipolar diagnosis in 2020. “I’ve never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye’s right to privacy when it comes to his health,” Kardashian wrote on Instagram, requesting the public and media for compassion and empathy for their family “to get through this.”
Their divorce was finalized in November 2022. Kim and Kanye have joint custody of their four kids and Kanye pays $200,000 per month to her in child support.