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25th Nov 2020

Meghan Markle reveals that she suffered a miscarriage during the summer

Wayne Farry

The Duchess of Sussex revealed the news in an essay for the New York Times

Meghan Markle has revealed that she suffered a miscarriage during the summer in a New York Times personal essay entitled ‘The Losses We Share’.

In the piece, the Duchess of Sussex details experiencing a “sharp cramp” while changing her son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor and her feeling of “an almost unbearable grief”.

“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,” she wrote.

“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”

Markle recalls being in hospital with the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, that same day.

“I felt the clamminess of his palm and kissed his knuckles, wet from both our tears,” she said.

“Staring at the cold white walls, my eyes glazed over. I tried to imagine how we’d heal.”

Markle continues, stating how through their pain, she and her husband discovered the “cycle of solitary mourning” that still surrounds losing a child.

“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,” she added.

“Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning.”