In her personal essay entitled The Losses We Share, Meghan recalled the moment she knew something was wrong when after she’d changed Archie’s nappy, she 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,” she wrote.
“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”
She then described her and Prince Harry’s heartache, going on to say: “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.”
Meghan also remarked that miscarriage is not uncommon but remains a taboo, shameful topic, “perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning”.
”Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few,” she penned.
The Duchess of Sussex has been praised for her bravery and candidness, but this is not the first time a member of the British royal family has shared their miscarriage experience with the world.
Prince Harry’s cousin, Zara Tindall spoke to the UK’s Sunday Times about her first miscarriage that she suffered before the birth of her eldest daughter Mia and her second before the birth of her youngest, Lena.
“In our case, it was something that was really rare; it was nature saying, ‘This one’s not right.’ I had to go through having the baby because it was so far along,” she told the publication in 2018.
Zara also spoke about the grief she and her husband Mike Tindall experienced.
“I think you need to go through a period where you don’t talk about it because it’s too raw,” she explained.
“But, as with everything, time’s a great healer.”
The Queen’s daughter-in-law Sophie, Countess of Wessex also had her own trauma when she suffered an ectopic pregnancy in 2001.
The wife of the Queen’s youngest son was rushed to hospital with crippling abdominal pains for emergency surgery.
Her husband Prince Edward confessed at the time: “It’s obviously a very traumatic time and my wife has… It’s quite the most painful thing that anyone can undergo. It’s a pretty traumatic experience. As the pain reduces, so the relief will increase.”
Years later in 2014 when she opened a neo-natal unit at a hospital as part of a royal engagement, the Countess of Wessex, who is now a mother of two, admitted: “The service you can provide can literally make the difference between life and death. I can attest to that.”