Meghan's Baby Heartache

The Duchess of Sussex opens up about her miscarriage and the importance of sharing our pain

- Nasifa Sulaiman

“ARE you okay?” It was a simple question from a journalist but it meant a lot to her.

“Thank you for asking,” she replied. “Not many people have asked if I’m okay but it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.”

This conversation happened back in October 2019, shortly after Harry and Meghan’s tour of Southern Africa. Meghan was a new mom then and – triumphant though the tour undoubtedly was – the Duchess of Sussex was not happy.

Negative publicity had overshadowed her pregnancy and early motherhood and she and Harry were taking strain. What happened next is history: the Sussexes’ growing unhappiness that culminated in the shock of Megxit.

But that question – “Are you okay?” – has stayed with Meghan. To her, it was a small light in a dark time – so when Harry stood by her bedside after the loss of their second baby, his eyes full of pain, she asked him that little three-word question.

“Sitting in a hospital bed, watching my husband’s heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine, I realised that the only way to begin to heal is to first ask, ‘Are you okay?’”

Meghan’s searingly honest and moving account of her miscarriage, published in The New York Times recently, came like a bolt from the blue.

For months, people had been wondering when she and Harry would add to their family – a sibling for little Archie (19 months), the second child the couple had said they wanted.