Singer-songwriter Kesha was featured on the June cover of Self magazine, sharing her story of a “horrifying” health scare she endured this year following fertility treatments.
The 36-year-old Kesha revealed she was diagnosed last year with a weakened immune system caused by CVID (common variable immunodeficiency). She had decided to freeze her eggs because she had a new album coming out and wanted to spend time considering what it would mean to raise a child in the current state of society. In her mid-thirties, she didn’t want to feel rushed into having a child. She then underwent an unnamed fertility procedure, saying she was “taking my reproductive health into my own hands.”
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Weeks after undergoing the treatment, she was performing on New Year’s Eve in the Bahamas when she felt something was off and was suddenly too weak to walk. Kesha had developed a serious complication from the fertility procedure and was transferred to a hospital in Miami where she stayed for nine days.
“I almost died in January,” she said. “I finally feel recovered, but it took a couple months. It was horrifying.”
She told Self that she supports everyone’s so-called “reproductive rights.”
Kesha is the latest celebrity to make headlines regarding fertility and pregnancy concerns. Kourtney Kardashian recently conceived naturally after experiencing disturbing side effects from in-vitro fertilization (IVF). “I felt like we kind of got pushed into doing IVF,” she said. “If you look online, it says if you’re over 40 go right away to an IVF doctor. So I felt a little bit pushed.”
In addition, the season three premiere of “The Kardashians” on Hulu featured sisters Kim and Khloé Kardashian discussing their experiences using surrogates, including how it negatively affected Khloé’s bond with her son.
Khloé said that she found the surrogacy process to be “transactional.” She explained, “I felt really guilty that this woman just had my baby and I take the baby and go to another room and you are separated. It felt like such a transactional experience because it was not about him. I wish someone was honest about surrogacy and the difference of it.
She added that she became controlling of the woman who carried her son and that the process made it more difficult to bond with her son when he was born compared to when she gave birth to her daughter and bonded with her. “But a surrogate process — Kim knows — is very hard for me. It’s a mindf***. It is really the weirdest thing,” Khloé said. “I do feel less connected. People do say it takes a minute to feel connected but Kim said hers was easy. This is not easy.”
Though Kim had an easier time using a surrogate, she did confess, “I do think there is a difference when your baby is in your belly, the baby actually feels your real heart. Think about it. There’s no one else on this planet that will feel you from the inside like that, your heart.”
Fertility treatments come with risks for those involved, including the biological mother (and/or surrogate) and the baby. These risks are both physical and emotional and include an increased risk of childhood illnesses for the babies conceived.
