MEGHAN Markle has today revealed she had a miscarriage in July causing her and Prince Harry “unbearable grief”.
The Duchess of Sussex, 39, wrote of the moment she knew she was “losing” her second baby in a deeply personal essay for the New York Times.
Recalling the devastating morning in July, the duchess said she had been looking after her son Archie, who would have been about 14-months-old at the time, when she felt a “sharp cramp”.
In the deeply moving piece, she wrote: “After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the floor with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keep us both calm, the cheerful tune a stark contrast to my sense that something was not right.
“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second. Hours later, I lay in a hospital bed, holding my husband’s hand.
“I felt the clamminess of his palm and kissed his knuckles, wet from both our tears. Staring at the cold white walls, my eyes glazed over. I tried to imagine how we’d heal.”
The former actress and husband Prince Harry welcomed their first son, Archie, into the world in May last year.
Meghan said she was speaking out about her loss because miscarriage was still a taboo subject which led to a “cycle of solitary mourning”.
The former actress said she wanted to encourage people to ask “are you OK” this holiday season.
In the touching essay, she added: “Sitting in a hospital bed, watching my husband’s heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine, I realized that the only way to begin to heal is to first ask, ‘Are you OK?’”
The duchess referenced the interview she gave in South Africa when ITV journalist Tom Bradby asked her if she was OK.
At the time, she struggled to hold back tears, saying: “Thank you for asking because not many people have asked if I’m OK.”
‘UNBEARABLE GRIEF’
And in the New York Times essay, Meghan spoke of the importance of sharing pain, saying “together we can take the first steps towards healing.”
Meghan wrote: “Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few.
“In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage.
“Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning.”
She also reflected on the trials of 2020, noting the “loss and pain” people have felt from losing loved ones to coronavirus and the wave of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Meghan said: “In places where there was once community, there is now division.”
“We aren’t just fighting over our opinions of facts; we are polarized over whether the fact is, in fact, a fact.
“We are at odds over whether science is real. We are at odds over whether an election has been won or lost. We are at odds over the value of compromise.”
