Lilibet’s Birth Had a Totally Different Vibe Than Archie’s, According to Prince Harry
As naming Princess Lilibet after Queen Elizabeth II returns to the spotlight, we’re looking back on the birth of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s daughter. What the Duke of Sussex had to say about the now-2-year-old’s birth in Spare and how it differed from that of her older brother, Prince Archie, 4.
Harry and Meghan welcomed Archie in 2019, Lili in 2021
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex became parents first in 2019, and then again in 2021. Harry and Meghan welcomed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, on May 6, 2019, at Portland Hospital in London, England.
At the time, Harry and Meghan were still representing the British royal family and living on Windsor Castle grounds. Days later, they formally introduced Archie to the world via a TV broadcast.
By the time of Lili’s birth on June 4, 2021, Harry and Meghan had relocated to Montecito, California. They welcomed Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California.
Harry and Meghan announced the new addition to their family two days later, on June 6, 2021, with a formal announcement.
Later, in December of that year, the world got a first glimpse of Lili in the Sussex family Christmas card.
Harry and Meghan had it ‘slightly easier’ during Lili’s birth compared to Archie’s
In his 2023 Spare memoir, Harry reflected on the births of both his and Meghan’s children. He remarked how the two milestone events, which took place in different countries on different continents, were indeed different.
Harry described Lili’s birth as being “slightly easier this time,” possibly because he and Meghan were “an ocean away from the old chaos and stress” of royal life.
“When the big day came, we were both surer, calmer — steadier,” he shared. “What bliss, we said, not having to worry about timing, protocols, journalists at the front gate.”
This time, the pair drove “calmly, sanely to the hospital” and waited for Lili’s arrival in a room filled with “nothing but joy and love.”
There was dancing, eating In-N-Out, fajitas, and, unlike Archie’s birth, no laughing gas for Harry. Finally, when the moment came, Harry was “fully present.”
Meanwhile, Archie’s birth involved more stress and secrecy. Harry and Meghan “crept away” from Frogmore Cottage, their former U.K. home, in May 2019 when the mother-to-be was well past her due date.
While doctors induced labor, Harry passed the time by ingesting laughing gas. Finally, after a “tangled” cord scare, Archie was born. “Within two hours,” they were all back home before any formal announcement had been made.
“I didn’t remember phoning anyone, texting them,” Harry recalled. “I remember watching the nurses run tests on my hour-old son, and then we were out of there. Into the lift, into the underground car park, into the people-carrier, and gone.”
Meghan Markle had ‘never been more in love’ with Prince Harry than in the delivery room welcoming their daughter
Harry also explained he’d wanted to be the first face Lili saw. For that reason, he stood next to the doctor before pulling Lili “from that world into this” and handing her to Meghan.
The moment proved magical for both Harry and Meghan, who later discussed it after they’d returned home with Lili and “settled into all the new rhythms of a family of four.”
“I’ve never been more in love with you than in that moment,” Harry recalled Meghan telling him. “Really?” he asked, to which she replied, “Really,” before writing “some thoughts in a kind of journal.”
Meghan, Harry explained, wrote a “testament” he saw as a “renewal” of their wedding vows in which she called the moment “everything.”
“She said: That was everything,” Harry recalled. “She said: That is a man. My love. She said: That is not a Spare.”
