The Celebrity Gossip Industry Almost Ruined Khloé Kardashian's Pregnancy

For those of us whose names will never appear on TMZ or the comments section of a blind gossip website, the celebrity rumor mill is fun. Breathlessly texting your friend a wild headline is fun. Screeching on Slack, “You’ll never believe who’s pregnant!” is fun. We wouldn’t have celebrities if talking about them wasn’t a blast. And, yet, the one show specifically crafted to give us celebrities to discuss endlessly over brunch and Twitter — Keeping Up With The Kardashians, naturally — went and proved A-list gossip hounding is more than just fun and games.

By giving us an inside look into the early days of Khloé Kardashian’s pregnancy with Sunday night’s “Trimester Trouble,” KUWTK reminds us there’s often a dark side to the rumor-fueled stories we all love so much.

While watching the most recent episodes of Kardashians season 14, it’s easy to forget the show still exists in a world where the public hasn’t been clued into Khloé's pregnancy yet. After all, the youngest Kardashian sister confirmed to her closest family and friends she was expecting episodes ago. Following “Bun In The Oven,” which aired in mid-January, everyone in KardashiLand has spoken freely in front of the cameras about the imminent arrival of Khloé’s first baby. So, the news feels like common knowledge.

But, the pregnancy is very much not out in the open at the time of filming “Trimester Trouble,” and Koko hopes to keep it that way. While anyone has the right to ensure their medical information — and the details of what may or may not be in their uterus — remains private, KUWTK reveals Khloé’s touch-and-go pregnancy made the entire enterprise even more dire.

When Kim announces TMZ has gotten wind of her little sister’s pregnancy, Khloé explains why she is so worried about touching the story with a 10-foot pole. “There are so many risks involved when you're newly pregnant,” the mom-to-be admits. “If the doctor is telling me not to announce anything until a specific time, I am respecting that. And I just hate that everyone is prying.”

Koko is right to be frustrated since her first trimester sounds legitimately worrisome. In a conversation with Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Khloé explains the outside of her vagina is irritated so much from mandatory progesterone suppositories, “it’s bleeding.” But, those supplements are also the only thing standing between her and a miscarriage, as the E! star says and her doctor later confirms. The problem is, Khloé’s body doesn’t naturally produce enough progesterone, and without high levels of the hormone, “The baby’s going to not be here” she says. An appearance from Khloe’s OBGYN Dr. Thais Aliabadi says the treatment, which the Kardashian labels “torture,” straight up “saved” the pregnancy.

If all of this doesn’t sound concerning enough, a throwaway comment from Dr. Aliabadi makes the looming threat of baby gossip seem even worse. During the visit, Khloé brings up her bleeding, “burned,” and “raw” vagina, looking for an explanation. The doctor reveals stress is a major cause of the alarming pregnancy-related ailment. It’s not like constantly worrying about TMZ leaking her baby news is lowering Khloé’s anxiety levels one bit. Instead, it’s making them much higher, effectively inflaming her anatomy more and putting a delicate pregnancy at further risk.

Khloé is obviously aware of how detrimental this looming media threat is, as she bluntly says in a confessional interview, “This is why you don’t announce early. There are a lot of complications … I could have had the potential to miscarry.”

It’s possible the Kardashians dedicated so much of “Trimester Trouble” to Khloé’s media-related stress because the family is seriously tired of feeling unsafe around their pregnancies. Earlier this season, Kim revealed she was once nearly in a car accident due to paparazzi chasing her vehicle down while she was expecting. Later, the middle Kardashian sister was rightly livid (and litigious) when tabloids published personal, identifying details about her surrogate, putting that woman in unnecessary jeopardy. At the time of the leak, Kim had yet to announce she and husband Kanye West were looking to add to their family, let alone who her surrogate is.

Kylie Jenner refused to even comment on her own baby rumors until little Stormi was born, happy and healthy. The youngest Kardashian-Jenner cited fears of passing undue stress to her daughter as the reason for all her secrecy.

So, celebrity baby news might be fun, but, it's definitely not worth all of this emotional, and physical, chaos. Maybe it’s time to leave announcing duties up to the maybe-pregnant celebrities in question, and only the maybe-pregnant celebrities in question?