Last year, Kourtney Kardashian Barker and her husband, Travis Barker, welcomed a baby boy named Rocky.
A couple of months before Rocky’s birth, Kourtney was hospitalized for an “urgent family matter,” with it later being revealed that she’d undergone an emergency fetal surgery.
The Mayo Clinic defines emergency fetal surgery as “a procedure performed on an unborn baby (fetus) in the uterus (in utero) to help improve the long-term outcome of children with specific birth defects.”
When Kourtney was hospitalized, Travis was away on tour with his band, Blink-182, and ultimately had to postpone several shows.
Kourtney later opened up about her surgery in a raw Instagram post. She wrote, “I will be forever grateful to my incredible doctors for saving our baby’s life. I am eternally grateful to my husband who rushed to my side from tour to be with me in the hospital and take care of me afterwards, my rock. And to my mom, thank you for holding my hand through this.”
“As someone who has had three really easy pregnancies in the past, I wasn’t prepared for the fear of rushing into urgent fetal surgery. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through a similar situation can begin to understand that feeling of fear. I have a whole new understanding and respect for the mamas who have had to fight for their babies while pregnant,” she added.
Fast-forward to today, and Kourtney has shared more details of her experience in the latest episode of The Kardashians.
In the first episode of Season 5, which aired on Hulu this week, Kourtney began by sharing that she’d planned to have a scan at her home so that her other kids — Mason, Penelope, and Reign — could “see the baby” themselves.
“We had planned a scan at home so that all the kids could see the baby,” she said. “Travis was about to leave for tour.”
“The doctor who [came] to the house to do the scan is a high-risk doctor who is really detailed and thorough at looking for everything, and something caught his eye where he wanted me to see a couple specialists,” she shared.
Kourtney then revealed that by the time she learned she had to go in for the surgery, Travis was already on tour, so her mom, Kris Jenner, took her to the hospital. She described the entire thing as “terrifying” and “so stressful.”
“The thing that was awful was that [Travis’s] Wi-Fi was broken on the plane, so the whole time he couldn't get updates,” Kourtney shared.
“He took off, and I think I had [the surgery] a couple hours later. I was sending him updates, and my mom was sending him updates, and he couldn’t get anything,” she said.
“By the time he got home, I had already had my surgery ‘cause they had to do it right away,” she said, adding that Travis came straight to the hospital as soon as he landed.
Kourtney went on to note that she was glad to have been open about her experience at the time. “So many people were so grateful that I posted something about it… So many people don’t feel comfortable even telling their friends or their family members because they’re like, Did [I] do something wrong?”
“My doctor [said], ‘There’s nothing that you did wrong. It’s not age-related. It’s just a super rare thing that happened,'” Kourt added.
Kourtney also revealed that after her emergency fetal surgery, she was left mostly on bed rest. “I’m not allowed to drive, I’m not allowed to stand for more than 20 minutes… I’m really not leaving the house, in other words,” she said.