You’ve never watched Kim Kardashian eat a salad with La’Reina Haynes, but she’s a very, very important person in the 37-year-old’s life. Haynes, a surrogate, helped Kardashian and husband Kanye West welcome their daughter, Chicago, on January 15.
She made her TV debut on the Sunday, March 4, season finale of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. In the episode, her face remains hidden, as she meets Kim’s mom and sisters for the first time.
“I like being pregnant. I know it sounds really weird,” Haynes told the family. “The pregnancy itself, you know, it just feels natural, like I’m supposed to do it.”
Kylie Jenner, who was still pregnant at the time, and Haynes immediately bonded. “This is so beautiful, this is amazing,” gushed the 20-year-old Life of Kylie star. (She and boyfriend Travis Scott welcomed their daughter, Stormi, on February 1.)
“Thank you,” Haynes replied. “I’m so proud of doing it in general. Like, with all the women who do have pregnancy issues, that put so much trust in people like me, it’s amazing. It’s already a big deal.”
In a confessional, Kim, who is mom to North, 4, and Saint, 2, opened up about the surrogate experience. “I didn’t really know what to expect because I don’t really know anyone that’s gone through this,” she revealed. “It was definitely not as easy as I thought it would be emotionally, but it’s so worth it.”
Kim praised Haynes as being “such a nice person” and raved, “I’m just so grateful.”
In the season 14 finale of the E! series, Khloé Kardashian learned that she and her NBA star boyfriend, Tristan Thompson, are having a baby girl. Khloé was in disbelief. “Everyone told me, ‘You’re going to feel what you’re having and you’ll just kind of know,’” the mom-to-be said on the show. “And then when you find out it’s the complete opposite, it’s just a shock. I was convinced that I was having a boy, so to be having a girl, it’s just like, ‘OK, that wasn’t what I thought was going on.’”
Us Weekly broke the news of Khloé’s pregnancy in late September.
