By now, it is pretty well known that Khloé Kardashian’s son, Tatum, was born into less-than-ideal circumstances back in 2022.
Instagram @khloekardashian / Via instagram.com
If you need reminding, Khloé shares Tatum — as well as her 6-year-old daughter True — with her ex, Tristan Thompson.
Khloe and Tristan first started dating in 2016, but their relationship was constantly dogged with cheating rumors. In fact, Khloé first found out that he had been unfaithful just days before she gave birth to True back in 2018.
What followed was years of an on-again, off-again relationship that saw Tristan get caught up in several more cheating scandals. Despite this, Khloé agreed to have another child with Tristan via surrogacy in 2021.
But just days after the embryo was implanted in the surrogate, Khloé — and the world — found out that Tristan had secretly fathered a son with another woman and had been keeping it from Khloé for months.
Not only did Tristan keep personal trainer Maralee Nichols’s entire pregnancy hidden from Khloé, but he was also secretly battling a related court case over his paternity and child support issues while she was none the wiser.
Instagram @maraleenichols / Via instagram.com
In fact, Khloé later revealed that Tristan was actively convincing her to go ahead with their surrogacy plans amid his secret legal woes — with her family later admitting that it seemed as though Tristan was racing against the clock in a bid to “trap” Khloé before he was found out.
Khloé and Tristan’s son was born in July 2021, just months after his son with Maralee — Theo — was born, and Khloé has always been incredibly open about how challenging the entire situation was for her.
Disney+ / Hulu
Speaking on her family’s reality show The Kardashians, she explained: “I definitely buried my head in the sand during that pregnancy. I didn’t digest what was happening. So I think when I went to the hospital, I really think that was the first time that it really registered.”
Khloé went on to share her guilt as she admitted that she struggled to bond with Tatum when he was first born. When he was 3 months old, she said: “When you compare it between True and him, it’s a very different experience, like, the connection.”
“I just feel bad…” Khloé added. “Not bad; I feel guilty sometimes. I’m like, why isn’t it the same? But I know it will be.”
And Khloé opened up some more during a recent appearance on her OB-GYN Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi’s SHE MD podcast with Mary Alice Haney.
SHE MD / Via youtube.com
In the episode, which was released on Tuesday, the star admitted that she cried so much when she was told that it was time for her surrogate to give birth that Dr. Aliabadi — also known as “Dr. A” — offered to take her son home with her until she was ready to meet him.
After recapping Tristan’s paternity scandal, Khloé explained: “The entire pregnancy of my surrogate, I admittedly buried my head in the sand. I said to Dr. A: ‘I can’t do this,’ and the whole surrogacy pregnancy, I was really detached. I couldn’t really face it. I was very much, I think, in denial that this was happening.”
“I had one of the world’s best surrogates,” she quickly added. “It has nothing to do with her. She was sensational; she was discreet, private.”
While Khloé did tell her close friends and family about the surrogacy when Tristan’s infidelity was exposed in December 2022, nobody else knew that she was expecting a second child with Tristan until it was reported by the press shortly before Tatum’s birth — and the public’s reaction “devastated” Khloé.
Instagram @khloekardashian / Via instagram.com
“No one found out about my pregnancy with Tatum until a couple of weeks before [he was born], and it devastated me because that’s when all the judgment and the knives were thrown at me,” she said. “My biggest fear was people finding out because I just couldn’t face it, let alone hear the noise.”
“I became very much a recluse. I didn’t even decorate the baby’s room because I didn’t want people in my home knowing,” Khloé went on. “I also film a TV show, like, nobody knew. I couldn’t admit this to anybody because I was so ashamed, just thinking I knew better. [I was] taught better.”
Ultimately, Khloé was so detached from the pregnancy that when her doctor called her to tell her that her son was being born a little earlier than expected, she struggled to cope.
Disney+ / Hulu
“Dr. A called, and she said she just had a checkup with my surrogate, and she said: ‘Khloé, we have to deliver within 24 hours,’” she recalled. “The baby wasn’t due for, like, another week or two, and this was my last weekend with my daughter, True. Like, in my head, I just needed the weekend.”
“So I go: ‘No, we can’t do this,’” Khloé added. “And she’s like: ‘No, there’s fluid in the sack, we need to do this.’ I go: ‘I’m having a weekend with True!’ And she goes — this is the Mother Teresa — I started hysterically crying because it wasn’t even about the weekend, it was about now this is real. And she goes: ‘You know what, I’ll deliver the baby, I’ll take the baby, and you come let me know when you’re ready to pick him up.’”
“And I was like, What? Who does this? Who even offers that? And she did!” Khloé continued. “And I remember, to myself, I was like, Khloé, fucking snap out of it. This is life; we’ve got to this.”
She also credited her sister Kim Kardashian for being her “prince on a white horse” by supporting her throughout the birth because she knew that Khloé was close to a breaking point.
The moment that Khloé first met Tatum was captured on The Kardashians, and the star admits that if you watch the episode, you can see that her eyes are “blank” because of how overwhelmed and disconnected she felt at the time.
She then admitted that it took her around nine or ten months to “fully connect to” Tatum.
While Khloé previously revealed that she didn’t speak to Tristan for “six months” after his paternity scandal was exposed, they now have a healthy coparenting relationship, and she praised the way that he is with their children.
Instagram @realtristan13 / Via instagram.com
“[He] is an incredible father,” she said on the podcast. “He did make mistakes, but he’s the nicest guy, and we get along so well now. We’re not meant to be together, but he was meant to be the father of these kids, and we do get along so well, and I’m really grateful for that.”
“I’ve seen some other fathers that are not great fathers,” Khloé went on. “And I am very grateful that I have one that wants to be in their lives, that’s active every single day even though he doesn’t live here full time — he works out of state — so I am very lucky for that, and I just want to move forward with our relationship as coparents.”
Meanwhile, it is not thought that Tristan has ever met his 2-year-old son, Theo, with Maralee. He also has a 7-year-old son, Prince, with his ex, Jordan Craig. Last year, Jordan’s sister publicly accused Tristan of not spending time with Prince.
