The countdown is on for Kourtney Kardashian to welcome her first child with husband Travis Barker, but since this will be her fourth child, it's safe to say she’s done the whole giving birth thing before. But every pregnancy is truly different, and this Kardashians star learned that lesson firsthand.
Kourtney has admitted that she’s had relatively easy pregnancies with kids Mason, Penelope, and Reign, but her current pregnancy threw her for a scary loop when she ended up having to go through emergency fetal surgery at the end of the summer.
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Kourtney got real about her emergency surgery.
"That experience opened my eyes to a whole new world of pregnancy that I didn’t know about in the past," she explained to Vogue in a new interview, calling the surgery "terrifying."
The experience taught her something important about the American health care system as well. "I learned that insurance typically only covers two ultrasounds when you’re pregnant, I had no idea," she admitted.
If she didn't have access to additional ultrasounds, her baby might not have survived.
Thankfully, Kourtney is aware of the immense amount of privilege she has, and how that ultimately contributed to her baby’s survival.
"I’ve always been lucky enough to do more than what insurance covers, and it’s one of those ultrasounds that saved my baby’s life," she said.
The whole experience changed Kourtney.
"I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through a similar situation can begin to understand that feeling of fear," Kourtney shared in an Instagram pot, adding that she found a "whole new understanding and respect for the mamas who have had to fight for their babies while pregnant."
She also opened up about going through IVF.
In another new interview, Kourtney told Vanity Fair Italia that she felt "pushed toward" undergoing IVF — a plan she later decided to abandon.
In the end, she conceived their baby-to-be naturally, which she called an "indescribable feeling." And while her critics have certainly made their opinions known about Kourtney being pregnant at 44 years old, her response is: "How could you question God’s plan?"
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When it comes to her birth plan, she's open to anything.
Though she'll be welcoming her baby boy soon, Kourtney admitted to Vogue that she doesn’t have a birth plan for Baby Barker.
"I’ve actually never had a birth plan in the past," she said. "This time, I still don’t have a birth plan except for talking to the baby all the time and telling him 'Everything is going to be amazing.'"
