Kourtney Kardashian Barker Finally Opens Up About Her “Super Rare” Emergency Fetal Surgery—and Clarifies It Was “Not Age-Related”

Season five of The Kardashians premiered on Hulu today, and Kourtney Kardashian Barker finally opened up about the “super rare” emergency fetal surgery she underwent last year when she was pregnant with her youngest, Rocky, whom she shares with husband Travis Barker. (Kardashian Barker also shares three older children, Mason, Penelope, and Reign, with her ex, Scott Disick.)

Kardashian Barker described on the show how she had a scan at home right before her husband was due to leave on tour with his band, Blink-182: “The doctor who will come to the house to do the scan is a high-risk doctor, really detailed and thorough at looking for everything,” she said. “And something caught his eye where he wanted me to see a couple of specialists, and I had to go in for fetal surgery, where they do surgery on the baby, which was terrifying.”

Kardashian Barker said the night before the surgery was “stressful”; by then, Barker was out of the country and flew home for the surgery, People reports. “The timing of it was miraculous,” she said. “That, like, saved everything. I just feel so grateful that, you know, how everything played out, and for the doctors that really helped make the best decisions that really saved our baby.”  

She added “[The] doctor was like, ‘That was a trauma, and I want you guys to be able to take a second and know that that was really traumatic.’” Kardashian Barker added that “There’s some superpower that I have that in emergency situations, I get really calm,” she said. “And then right when we left I was like, ‘Okay, I could take a deep breath. I could cry. I could get it out.’”

Kardashian Barker opted to share her experience on social media, and said of that decision that she’s happy she posted about her surgery so others could learn from her experience. “They were so grateful that I posted something about it, because they said so many people don’t feel comfortable even telling their friend or their family members because they’re like, ‘Did they do something wrong or different things?’” she said. “But my doctor’s like, ‘There’s nothing that you did wrong. It’s not age-related. [Kardashian Barker gave birth at 44 years old.] It’s just, like, a super rare thing that happened.’ But then I was like, after this happened, I was like, God’s got this. We’re good. This is a miracle, and I’m gonna be super positive.”

After the surgery, she felt much better, saying “I feel good. But I also felt good. So I’m like, yeah, if I don’t feel movement for, like, five minutes, I’m like shaking him up because of the emergency fetal surgery that I had to have.” After the surgery, “I’m now, like, mostly on bedrest, because there’s a hole in the amniotic sac from where they had to go into the surgery. So I’m not allowed to drive. I’m not allowed to stand for more than 20 minutes. I’m really not leaving the house.”

After having her surgery at 31 weeks pregnant, Rocky Thirteen Barker was, blessedly, delivered safely last November.