An estimated one in four pregnancies ends in a miscarriage, according to the charity Tommy’s. Tommy’s midwife Sophie King said talking about baby loss in pregnancy is “a real taboo in society” so “mothers like Meghan sharing their stories is a vital step in breaking down that stigma and shame”.
Today Meghan wrote that her miscarriage had happened on a July morning that ‘began as ordinarily as any other day’. Describing the tragic moment she realised ‘something was not right’, she said: ”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 Royal Continued.
Meghan is the first royal to describe the ‘unbearable grief’ of losing a baby. Zara Tindall suffered two miscarriages while Sophie, Countess of Wessex, lost an unborn baby in 2001.
Justifying the timing of her article, she wrote: ‘This year has brought so many of us to our breaking points,’ Meghan writes. ‘So, this Thanksgiving, ‘let us commit to asking others, ‘Are you OK?’. “Are we?” she asks. “This year has brought so many of us to our breaking points. Loss and pain have plagued every one of us in 2020, in moments both fraught and debilitating.”
The intimate details shared in the article are strikingly at odds with the usual policy of senior members of the British royal family, who reveal almost nothing about their personal lives.