Meghan Markle on her miscarriage: ‘I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second’

Meghan Markle is using her platform for so many good things. She’s been open about her struggles as a new mom, and now, she’s published a powerfully honest essay about losing her second pregnancy in July of this year.

In a piece for the
New York Times, she recalls the exact moment she knew her pregnancy was ending.

“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 writes.

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

The pain she felt as she lay in a hospital bed with her husband by her side, is a pain so many mothers can relate to, just as many mothers related to Markle’s pain when, in 2019, she answered honestly when a journalist asked if she was okay. As a new mom who was breastfeeding a baby who wasn’t yet 6 months old (while under constant media scrutiny) she was not okay and was honest about it.

And she’s not going to pretend that she was okay after losing her second child in July.

She writes: “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.”

In her essay, Markle talks about the losses so many are feeling right now. So many have lost loved ones to COVID-19, and the nation is still mourning the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

“Peaceful protests become violent. Health rapidly shifts to sickness. In places where there was once community, there is now division,” Markle writes.

She continues: “On top of all of this, it seems we no longer agree on what is true. 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.”

She ends her essay with a plea to her fellow Americans ahead of Thanksgiving: “Let us commit to asking others, ‘Are you OK?’ As much as we may disagree, as physically distanced as we may be, the truth is that we are more connected than ever because of all we have individually and collectively endured this year.”

Thank you, Meghan. For this essay and for always telling the truth when you are not okay.