Kim Kardashian: “I would have a million” kids
I’ve always wanted about six [kids]. After having [North], I would have a million…. But the pregnancy – I wouldn’t really wish that upon anyone.
I mean, it’s all worth it in the end, so I would definitely suffer through that…But pregnancy was not a good experience for me. At all.
~ Kim Kardashian gushing over her baby daughter North West [pictured] on the Ellen DeGeneres Show as quoted by US Magazine, January 17

In what way was her pregnancy so bad? Im so done with the Kardashians and Ellen!
Kim said she suffered from preeclampsia – a medical condition characterized by high blood pressure and significant amounts of protein in the urine which made her go into labor early.
Kim also complained about gaining too much weight. She made sure she was photographed in her third-trimester bikini for the tabloid covers, then lamented her pregnant physique and need to get rid of the baby weight ASAP.
For pampered Kim, that is way too much to suffer – but definitely not for your normal pregnant mom. I don’t know much about her labor experience but I would imagine that was extremely difficult for her as well.
Finally, it would be nice if she spent more time with her daughter.
LL
Having had preeclampsia myself with my first, it is nothing to ignore. It is incredibly stressful, and physically very hard. It can come with headaches and ringing in the ears, blurred vision, general malaise and I personally gained a huge amount of water weight. I was so swollen I HURT. I was half seriously scared my ankles would burst open if they had swelled any further. It would not truly have been surprising had I had a stroke or seizure due to high pressure.
Every pregnancy I have near debilitating pelvic pain. I CAN NOT sit tailor style or at all on the floor or I will not be able to walk the rest of the day. On the flip side, the hormone that does this to me, relaxin, makes labor much easier.
This has not prevented me from having my 6, soon to be 7 children, but it isn’t something to brush away as nothing.
We need to be honest and acknowledge that pregnancy and birth can cause suffering, but that killing other people to make ourselves more comfortable or even at times safer is never the right answer.
I am going to come to Kim’s defense on this.
She is talking about how wonderful it is to be a mommy. She loves her child, and wants to have many more. Pregnancy was difficult, be she seems to enjoy boasting about it (some mommies do, and I figure that they’ve earned it).
Her main point in this rambling bit of sharing, is that the child is worth the effort and discomfort — and that’s a pro-life message.
I agree Del but a million Kardashians? Will we be able to “keep up” with so many of them? :)
Could we post something on Martin Luther King Jr. today?
Please?
Hah, Thomas R., that was funny. You win today.
Honestly, I’m just really happy for her, Kanye and North. I’m not going to say anything negative whatsoever.
Hi Carla, I had a MLK post but it was bumped to today’s PLV. LL
Kim,
It would help considerably if you’d wear a decent pair of comfortable and flatter shoes when pregnant.
I think it’s encouraging when women openly discuss disliking pregnancy while noting that it is absolutely, 100% worth it in the end. For a lot of women, pregnancy mostly feels terrible. For a lot of women, it’s not so bad at all, so I’m not saying pregnancy is the worst thing ever. But there can be problems ranging from the significant – pre-eclampsia, hyperemesis (which I had) – to the “minor” – just feeling totally crummy – and nothing is gained by dismissing those problems like it’s somehow a devaluation of life to even acknowledge them. Doctors are now becoming aware that antenatal depression is actually likely more common than postpartum depression – that many, many women experience depression while pregnant, and that this depression is compounded by the fact that these women often feel ashamed or “wrong” for not being happy and glowing like they are “supposed to.” The pressure to “be happy” when pregnant can be significant and there’s no need for this to be the case.
Personally, when I was pregnant, the best I ever felt was when I got fed up with feeling bad about how bad I was feeling and said, “Hey, you know what? I’m really uncomfortable, I can’t eat, I can barely do my job, my body turned into a stranger’s body and my pants won’t button even though I can barely keep weight on so I feel hideous and uncomfortable all the time. I don’t like doing any of the things I normally like doing: I can’t concentrate on a book without re-reading every sentence at least three times, I fall asleep watching movies or even 30-minute TV shows, forget about going for a hike, a bike ride, swimming some laps – I can barely make it up a flight of stairs without getting dizzy. I can’t eat without puking and I can’t not-eat without puking. I can’t get out of bed but I can’t fall asleep. Why SHOULDN’T I be unhappy right now?” It was a very empowering thing to recognize – that I was unhappy and that my unhappiness was actually quite reasonable and understandable, not some freak aberration that secretly signified that I shouldn’t be a mother, something I had to hide from the world because it might make people think that I would be a worse mother.
I think that too often, we allow the pro-choice side to “own” the difficulty of pregnancy. They talk ad nauseum about how hard it can be, how disruptive it can be, how potentially job-interfering it can be. And it can be all of those things, and more. It can be wonderful, too. But it is important to have women out there saying, “Hey, you know what? It wasn’t wonderful for me. It was actually pretty miserable. But it was still the best thing I ever did and I would do it again in a heartbeat.” That is a pretty powerful message: that children are worth the misery of even the most miserable pregnancy, and so much more.
Thanks Len. I surprise myself sometimes :)
Hi Laura: I read that Kim and Kanye hired three babysitters for their daughter. If that’s true you may not get your wish of Kim spending not more but any time with her child :(
Elizabeth: Thank you for your insightful comments. I didn’t realize preeclampsia was so serious and had so many terrible side effects.
Also, what Alexandra stated about how the child far outweighs all of the physical and emotional stressors that go on during a pregnancy is important. It’s important for the mom to be shown extra care and help during the pregnancy.
I also want to express my admiration to all of the single moms who went through pregnancy, labor and raising their children alone – with occasional help from extended family.
Finally, I owe Kim an apology for making light of some of her symptoms that I felt others were coasting through.
LL
I always hate being pregnant when I am then tend to romanticize it and miss it when I’m not. But like Kim said…totally worth it in the end!
Hi Laura Loo,
Yes pre eclampsia is indeed very serious. I saw a young mother die of it. It can necessitate premature delivery by C-section, as we saw with Michelle Duggar, and can result in stroke, as well as chronic high blood pressure.
A friend of mine had severe second trimester pre eclampsia with her first pregnancy and because of this was advised to abort her second. She chose not to but did again develop severe second trimester preeclampsia. Thankfully she and the baby survived, but she wisely chose a tubal ligation afterward.
My co workers and I could only struggle helplessly as a young mother bled out because of DIC and have struggled to keep a young mother stable during a C section because her boggy uterus would not contract.
I take pregnancy very, very seriously. Especially when it is a woman who is at increased risk because of previous history of complications or has medical issues such as diabetes or obesity.
My former wife suffered pre eclampsia. She spent the last three months of pregnancy rotating between hospital and the couch, a week at a time. She didn’t seem to think this was too much to endure – yes, every case is different – and there was nothing which made her say she wouldn’t undertake another pregnancy.
I’ve heard women extol their pregnancies as anything from an endurance torture test to an absolute doddle. Most of them repeated the exercise, whatever their experience.
But then again, I’ve endured months of pain from accidents but I always get back on the bike.
And yes, I think high heels and pregnancy isn’t the wisest combination.
In her defense she did suffer a medical complication and needed to go into preterm labour. Preclampsia isn’t easy.
I think something we can do better as pro-lifers is more readily admit that pregnancy can be trying and traumatic… but not let it drown out the foundation that though life itself is trying and traumatic, it is absolutely worthy of our protection.
When we statistically or relatively brush-off concerns about health or welfare of the mother or the child we inadvertently reinforce the idea that any difficultly in pregnancy or parenting ought to be met with a serious consideration to abort the whole situation. Our message might actually be strengthened if we come out strong with the idea that pregnancies can be challenging and risky and that successful-feeling parenting is darn near miraculous, but it’s all so incredibly worth it that we can’t bring ourselves to defer to anything else.
signed ~ mother of a child who died at birth & mother of two more who turn my hair delightfully gray
Hi Reality,
I’m very happy to hear your former wife suffered no complications from pre eclampsia. My sister in law developed it in the last trimester of her first pregnancy and thankfully the symptoms were kept under control and the baby, though early and small, was fine. She had two more uneventful pregnancies. Women with previous severe bouts of pre-e, as my friend had, or who already have more than one child, may be strongly encouraged by their doctors not to risk another pregnancy. As you say every case is different.
And you’re right about the heels. Good grief my back ached and my ankles swelled just looking at Kim wearing those things.
Sorry everyone I didnt know she had eclampsia. Er ah I havent exactly been keeping up with the Kardashians anymore. I embraced my pregnancies…sickness and all. But I am sorry to Kim. I was looking at the tabloids tonight waiting for my Z Pac and the tabloids are now saying Khloe is pregnant.
Hi Laurie,
I just hope those morons who ridiculed her weight and appearance during her pregnancy, of course all of them beauty queens who weigh 85 lbs., are proud of themselves.
Pregnancy is difficult enough, do we even know what physical and emotional factors are involved as well, without a freaking peanut gallery full of mindless twits who need to get lives.
Mary…isnt the only solution to pre e early delivery? Im sure you and I had once spoken about the 1996 case of teen Amy Grossberg. She hid 9 months of pregnancy from everyone except her boyfriend Brian. All of the symptoms described were true of Amy. I didnt know it was so dangerous.
Anyway Amy gave birth to a full term baby boy at a hotel. She told Brian to “Get rid of it”!!! Brian put the baby in a garbage bag and threw him into a dumpster. Satisfied she had pulled it off Amy and Brian drove off into the frigid November early morning. Amy returned to college that morning. By evening she began to suffer convulsions in her college dorm. The media circus then began!
Hi heather,
As far as I know, delivery is the only solution. Symptoms may be controlled, but this is a condition that needs to be treated with the respect it deserves. Jill and ProliferL would be far more expert in this area than I am. The young mother I saw die had successfully delivered, and was thought to be stable, when she developed grand mal seizures and was immediately brain dead, though sustained by life support for a few days.
As I said my friend had severe pre e in her second trimester and was advised to never have another pregnancy. She had an unplanned pregnancy and was advised to abort. She refused and did develop severe second trimester pre-e. Thankfully she and the baby got through it but she wisely chose to take no future risks. She wanted to be alive to raise her children.
Sigh….I cant understand how anyone could be bothered by their weight gain while pregnant. I hit 210 pounds with my last pregnancy.
Hi heather,
I was visiting the custard ice cream shop every nite with my last pregnancy! I figured when the baby was born I’d lose a good 8-9 lbs. Little stinker only weighed 6 lbs.
ME have a 6 lb baby??!! Well, obviously all those hot fudge sundaes didn’t go on her!! Being my panty hose kept ripping I had to face some difficult facts!
Yes Mary..I know it used to be called toxemia. As I was reading the book about Amy and Brian…( fabulous book BTW ) it talked about Amys swelling nausea and headaches. 2 abortion appts that she was too afraid to go through with and even a doctor giving her a college physical missed a 4th month of pregnancy by palpating the abdomen! Amy had no idea what was going on because she never saw a doctor.
Mary lol. It took a little over a yr but I lost the weight. My cravings? Boston Cream pie and Del Monte grapefruit.
Laura, I am so sorry for your loss.
Thank you for saying what you did so eloquently. I could not put it better myself. When the pro-life movement minimizes or laughs off the very real struggles that many women face during pregnancy, even if out of a well-intentioned desire to emphasize the end result and the importance of life, it alienates women who know full well that sometimes pregnancy is NOT easy. Back when I was pro-choice I was quite fond of listing the very real physical and emotional difficulties I faced and holding them up as evidence that no one should be “forced” to go through these things. A pro-life woman told me, “Please – a common housecat can get through a pregnancy just fine. Put on your big girl panties.” It did nothing but reinforce my belief that I was right and she was wrong – because I KNEW that what I had gone through was truly difficult and traumatic, and I knew that all the people who told me that pregnancy really isn’t that hard were wrong, or at least were wrong about me. I danced professionally back in the day (ballet, ie bleeding into my own pointe shoes) and I ran 10+ miles for fun; I ushered my mom through cancer and I drove my dad to the hospital without ever having driven before when he had a severe reaction to his medication. I weld and I can drive a 24′ truck. I am not, basically, some wilting flower on a fainting couch, but pregnancy was very, very hard on me, both physically and emotionally; and I knew that anyone who laughed that off was just plain wrong. And the pro-life people I spoke to often brushed my experiences aside or minimized them – and they were wrong, just like the doctor who suggested that my hyperemesis was just a psychosomatic manifestation of my anxiety over an unplanned pregnancy. Where I was wrong was thinking that any difficulty, however great, in pregnancy justifies a woman having an abortion. But being confronted with the obvious wrongness of people who were all too happy to make snide remarks about my experiences only made me think, “Well, of course they’re wrong about everything else too.”
It is very possible to validate and respect the difficulties women face in pregnancy and still affirm the value of life.
Mary, thank you for the information on pre-eclampsia! I don’t know much about it but you’ve been very informative.
My sunshiney opinion: :P
Good luck to little North West; she has two idiots for parents.
Hi Laurie and Alexandra,
You have both made your points so thoroughly and eloquently that nothing can be added.
Pregnancy is not a spectator sport and I have been deeply troubled when people who have called themselves pro life have been so caught up in some happy ending scenario that they have not seen the forest for the trees. Happy endings always happen in the perfect world. In the real world I watch helplessly as a young mother bleeds to death or a woman with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and no blood pressure is rushed to surgery.
Thank you both for some very much needed insight as to how we can all be much more sensitive to the pregnant woman. This is no spectator sport where people perform for us, this is a very unique experience for each woman and needs to be respected as such.
You’re very welcome for the info on pre eclampsia. As I said, Jill and ProliferL would be far more expert in this area and I hope we will hear from them on this subject.
BTW when I worked ICU, we would get some of the pre-e women. Those poor OB nurses, we were on the phone half the nite to them! They did come and check the patients hourly. I think they were taking care of us more than the patients, who were doing better than we were!
Hey Doug,
My kids were convinced they did too. But they all turned out great!
Thanks Mary and to all who helped educate me today. LL :)
Hi Laura Loo,
Thank you.
Also, my thanks to Laurie, Reality, ElizabethG, and Alexandra who have certainly educated me today as well. Its never too late to learn from another’s experience and perspective.
I know I’m late but wanted to add that I also ended up having pre-eclampsia. Was super close to seizures during labor which can so quickly lead to coma and possibly death.
Many in the pro-life and Christian community paint pregnancy and having babies with a rosy brush. It’s hard. Pregnancy doesn’t fit well for everyone. Though I will say that, even as I was being stitched up after a grueling labor and pregnancy, my husband asked me if I wanted any more children and I did say yes. But there needs to be a middle ground between the pro-aborts/ people who say pregnancy and babies are bad unless the conditions are perfect (are they ever?) and the people who ridicule anyone who admits to not absolutely loving being pregnant and giving birth. Babies are great, but they’re messy. It’s so easy for new moms to feel lost and lonely. Motherhood is a huge role shift and it’s not always easy.
Peace to all.
And after North, she has three more names: South West, East West, West West, and then what? Coordinates? Continents? Countries? Geography! ;)
Also, North is.SO.CUTTE. Wow.
Also, I will confess that I wore high heels during pregnancy (occasionally) (and I did have to buy a bigger size).
At a time in my life when I felt unwieldy and swollen, heels helped me feel elegant and beautiful. Albeit, I couldn’t wear them for long. But they did help me feel “normal” again. Plus, I will say they helped draw attention to the best parts of my new, round physique, if you know what I’m sayin’.
To each his own, I guess.
Hi Libertybelle,
You are so right. PL people cannot always paint pregnancy with a rosy brush, as your own experience makes plain.
Many people view pregnancy as divinely inspired and I respect their view. But it is a physiological process that carries its own risks as well and must be taken very seriously, which all too often I feel it is not. Its not a spectator sport where we cheer on women like they’re horses at the Kentucky Derby.
I remind people that when God gave us a brain, it wasn’t to separate our ears. There are times when good judgment is called for. If there are serious risk factors, such as severe pre eclampsia, blood clots, hypertension, severe genetic disorder, or post partum depression or psychosis, then future pregnancies may best be avoided.
I have long held Rusty Yates personally responsible for the deaths of those 5 children. As a husband and father he showed appalling disregard for his wife and children. To cold turkey his mentally ill wife(postpartum psychosis) off her medication so as to impregnate her again is to me incomprehensible. A truly loving and Christian husband would put the well being and safety of his wife and children first and foremost.
I am happy to hear you came through your experience unscathed, and yes you indeed had a very close call.
Hi Libertybelle,
I still don’t wear heels. Only the very short and wide ones.
I remember my mother wore them to work every day, walked to and from the bus stop in them.
Ugh, not me.
I too suffered through difficult pregnancies but had easy labors. Morning sickness made pregnancy a real trial.
However, I”m not so willing to Kim a break here. For one thing she along with many other celebrities have really started this cult of not appearing in public again until their bodies are in even better shape then they were pre-pregnancy. This has become such the norm now, that when Kate appeared outside the hospital after the birth of Prince George, people gasped that we saw her still stretched and swollen belly through her dress.
Focusing on this kind of thing only reinforces young women’s desire not to have children in a world that already sends the message that babies are ruinous – destroy your marriage, your sex life, your body AND kills the career.
Kim gets no sympathy from me.
Hi angel,
My favorite was the “new mother” picture of the new Mrs. Trump.
Evening gown with her breasts pushed up to her chin. 6 inch high heels, hair, nails and makeup impeccable, beautiful jewelry. She’s posing with a gold encrusted baby carriage in a nursery that has to be worth a million dollars, give or take,
Now what new mother wouldn’t look at that and see herself? Certainly brought back memories for me! :)
angel, do you think that celebrity women should be like, required to showcase their bodies during pregnancy, especially if it’s a very difficult pregnancy like Kim’s apparently was? I don’t blame Kim for not wanting to be in the limelight during this hard time, there was mountains of speculation about how much weight she was gaining, jokes about how terrible and fat she looked, etc etc. I don’t think celebrities, pregnant or not, are required to let people intrude on their personal lives more than they want or happens anyway because of paparazzi. They are people, not characters required to do anything for us. Their job is entertainment, when they aren’t getting paid I think it’s annoying when people think that they are entitled to the celebrity, be it in the form of pictures or attention to fans. Especially when they are pregnant and miserable with a tough pregnancy.
No sympathy for a woman suffering preeclampsia, now do you think that’s very pro-life?
Hi Jack,
You make some great points. Thank you.
Angel, I think it’s more of a cult of tabloids like People Magazine and its followers who feel the need to publicize and criticize the appearance of pregnant celebrities and those who are new mothers. I certainly wouldn’t want to appear in public either if my photo was taken every time I left the house, to be posted online and then critiqued by everyone who felt the need to mention how terrible and overweight I looked. I don’t blame the celebrities, I blame those who won’t leave them alone.
Hi len,
I remember one such tabloid rag that drooled over Angelina Jolie:
Now what new mother can just have a baby then get on a plane and go half way around for some important charitable need? What a superwoman!
Uh, real world to scandal rag: A new mother with and 8+ figure bank account, a private jet, around the clock nannies and household staff, and personal assistants for starters.
You mean this isn’t the case with every new mother??
Sorry Deluded LIb Pro LIfer, I have little sympathy for Kim’s situation. I do sympathize with her difficulties during pregnancy but that was not what my comment was about. Kim is the maker of her own destiny. She is a big girl who made her own choices as to her lifestyle – to be a celeb and all the trappings that come with it.
However, she along with many other celebs do not get my sympathy for their post pregnancy situations because they have created this all by themselves. They set other women up for failure and set the expectations that women should look like a million bucks after a birth. It’s not just the magazines or the media. They could make the choice to counter this as Kate Middleton did. She got a lot of support for what she did. Even I, a middle aged women who has had 4 children and who KNOWS what pregnancy does to a woman’s body, was shocked when I saw her picture. Until I remembered that Kate’s body IS the norm post-pregnancy — NOT Kim’s. Kim wouldn’t be caught dead outside the hospital showing her new baby AND her baby bump. That bump was ok when it had a baby in it. It was something to be flaunted and photographed and posted everywhere.
It seems to me that as our view of sexuality and women’s bodies become more distorted our actions do too. In the days long past when women were modest, maternity clothes were loose and comfortable and covered our growing bellies. Today it is the post-pregnancy body we are ashamed of. We continue to have women who are high profile who promote this distorted view of women and having to have THE perfect body. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
What does this message say to thousands of women who struggle to lose the extra pounds after a baby? What does this do to husbands who form the unrealistic expectation that a woman’s body should look, post-pregnancy, as great as Kim’s does? It’s demeaning to women and it’s a poor example to the young women who are to be future mothers. Maybe they will give motherhood the pass. After all if pregnancy is this much work and my body is going to go to hell why bother. And seemingly that is exactly what is happening.
It’s great Kim had a baby. That’s a prolife move. But Kim following in the footsteps of other women celebs and doing the disappearing act until her body is perfect or even better than before does nothing but further entrench women as objects. That’s why Kim gets no sympathy from me.
She “would have a million kids….”
Maybe that’s okay, as she doesn’t look like she’s had more than a hundred thousand….
Hi Mary I finally found the thread you were telling me about regarding high risk pregnancy with preeclampsia and Kim Kardashian. Thank God that this is not considered a really common thing. From what I understand more recent research says that they can carefully monitor most women with preeclampsia that is being controlled with frequent prenatal visits, BP checks, blood work evaluating kidney and liver function (protein in the urine is not as definitive as blood test indicating decreasing kidney and liver function), evaluate the baby’s heart rate and growth and some other testing but if the things worsen more aggressive treatment in the hospital on IV meds (Magnesium Sulfate), anti-hypertensive meds and delivery at 37 weeks (or earlier if there are signs she is getting worse).
Although it is rare, what they definitely don’t want is full blown eclampsia with ICU care, teams of lots of specialists for mother and baby (prenatal and postnatal specialists).
Prenatal education on the warning signs of pregnancy (headache, visual disturbances, etc) is a great way to empower women so they know when to get to their MD/CNM.
BTW, I saw some interesting research on this topic. Women who have different sexual partners (especially during pregnancy) are more likely to develop preeclampsia than those who are in a committed, monogamous relationship. Who are women that are the least likely to have different sexual partners? Women in a committed, monogamous, faithful MARRIAGE (not single, cohabiting, separated or divorced women). Who are women that are more likely to be committed, monogamous faithful in marriage and remain married? Women who have saved sex for marriage. Not a put down, not PC but just the TRUTH. Read Glenn T. Stanton’s books “The Ring Makes All the Difference” and ”Why Marriage Matters”.
Hmmm. I wonder since more and more women are choosing to not get married and to have babies out of wedlock if eventually we will see the numbers of preeclampsia rise. I wonder if it will even be reported if this does happen because it won’t be PC. Oh no, not another reason to save sex for marriage. How puritanical and judgmental.