When guests gathered for Kim Kardashian’s cherry-blossom-filled baby shower over the weekend, there was someone missing: the surrogate carrying the reality TV star’s third child with husband Kanye West.
Kardashian revealed that she did not extend an invitation to the woman, who’s been kept out of the public eye, during an appearance on “The Real” to promote her new line of fragrances on Thursday.
“I did not,” Kardashian explained when host Loni Love asked whether she invited the surrogate to the party. “I introduced her to my family earlier that day, and I just thought … I don’t know, it was a weird decision to have to make.”
She continued, “Of course I would have wanted her to be there, and be a part of it, but I hadn’t really gone that far in explaining it to my kids yet.”
Kardashian already shares two children with West — daughter North, 4, and Saint, 2 — whom she felt weren’t ready to understand the surrogate’s role.
“I think I have to explain it to my kids first, and figure out how I’m going to explain it to them,” she said. “So I have to figure that out first before they really see, and then if we’re celebrating, you know, her … I just wanted to celebrate the baby.”
The beauty mogul, however, had nothing but praiseworthy things to say about the surrogate, who she revealed didn’t know that she was carrying the celebrity offspring at first. Kardashian said surrogacy can be done anonymously, but the star insisted on meeting to make sure the surrogate was comfortable with the situation.
“What if they weren’t a fan of me or my husband?” she said. “What if they didn’t want to be carrying our baby? I wanted to give them that choice.”
When they did meet, Kardashian says the surrogate was “really excited” and previously aware of her struggles to conceive. The star experienced preeclampsia while pregnant with North, and placenta accreta throughout both pregnancies.
“I love her. I have the best relationship with my surrogate. She’s so nice,” Kardashian added. “She’s the perfect person to do this for my family.”
Despite once describing pregnancy as “the worst experience of my life,” Kardashian says the surrogacy was “so much harder” than conceiving naturally.
“Anyone that says or thinks (surrogacy) is just the easy way out is just completely wrong,” she recently told Entertainment Tonight. “Obviously you pick someone that you completely trust and that you have a good bond and relationship with, but it is still ... knowing that I was able to carry my first two babies and not, you know, my baby now, it’s hard for me. So, it’s definitely a harder experience than I anticipated just in the control area.”