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Being pregnant is not something Kim Kardashian looks back on with fondness. In fact, the months she carried daughter North and son Saint were some of the most miserable of her life, she says.
The reality show star has opened up about her road to motherhood, including how she felt about being body-shamed during her first pregnancy.
“I was not a good pregnant person. I was not a cute pregnant person. I did not like it,” she says. “I hated it. I hated how I felt. I hate how I looked.”
Speaking to actresses Kristen Bell and Monica Padman on the podcast We Are Supported By, Kim (40) confided being pregnant came as something of a shock.
“I was so used to seeing my mom pregnant, my sister pregnant and everyone looking so cute and having these easy deliveries. And it was great and they snapped right back. That wasn’t me,” says Kim, who delivered North (8) and Saint (5) and used a surrogate for her younger kids, Chicago (3) and Psalm (2).
During her pregnancy with North, Kim developed preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition in which pregnant women develop dangerously high blood pressure. She says she “didn’t really know I had it” but it showed in her “swollen feet and face”.
Comparisons were often made between her and Kate Middleton, who was pregnant with her first child, Prince George, at the same time Kim was expecting North.
“It killed my self-esteem,” she says. The comparisons affected her so much she refused to leave home for months. “I would sit at home and cry all the time.”
Kim’s pregnancies were also complicated by placenta accreta, in which the placenta remains attached to the uterine wall and can cause catastrophic blood loss while giving birth.
Both North and Saint were delivered prematurely because of Kim’s complications and after Saint’s arrival she needed five operations to “fix the damage inside”.
She’d hoped to conceive a third time but didn’t so she sought the help of a surrogate.
In the podcast, Kim implores people to be compassionate.
“You just never fully know what someone is going through behind the scenes,” she says. “I've learnt through my own experiences it’s always better to lead with kindness.”
Sources: People, Mirror, FoxNews, Mayo Clinic , WebMD
