Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has shared the heartbreak she felt after suffering a miscarriage this summer (2020).
The Suits actress turned British royal, who shares an 18-month-old son, Archie, with husband Prince Harry, revealed the tragic news in an article penned for The New York Times on Wednesday (November 25, 2020).
“It was a July morning that began as ordinarily as any other day: Make breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins,” she writes. “Find that missing sock. Pick up the rogue crayon that rolled under the table. Throw my hair in a ponytail before getting my son from his crib.
“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.”
Meghan went on to reveal how her husband had comforted her after she was admitted to hospital, adding: “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.”
She went on to explain how a journalist asking if she was “OK” during a royal visit to Africa in 2019 had helped her struggle with becoming a royal in perspective, and that the same words comforted her when they came from Harry when said following the miscarriage.
Calling on others to share their pain, she added: “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 concluded her message by writing: “We have learned that when people ask how any of us are doing, and when they really listen to the answer, with an open heart and mind, the load of grief often becomes lighter – for all of us. In being invited to share our pain, together we take the first steps toward healing.”
