Meghan Markle Isn’t the Only Royal Family Member to Have a Miscarriage
Miscarriage is one of the most heartbreaking things that a woman can experience, and unfortunately, it’s all too common: about 1 in 8 pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex inspired women around the world when she admitted that she was one of the millions of women who’ve experienced the devastating loss of miscarriage. And it turns out, she’s not alone in the royal family.
Meghan Markle opened up about her fertility struggle
In November 2020, Meghan shared her miscarriage story in an op-ed for The New York Times. The day in July started just like any other day. She was changing baby Archie’s diaper when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her abdomen.
“I dropped to the floor with [Archie] 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,” Meghan recounted. “I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.”
The Duchess of Sussex went on to discuss how she wanted to use her platform to speak out about this thing that so many women experience but never talk about publicly.
“Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few,” she said. “In being invited to share our pain, together we take the first steps toward healing.”
She also recalled her viral interview from 2018 when a journalist asked her if she was OK, concluding truthfully that we’re all a work in progress.
Meghan Markle isn’t the only royal family member to suffer a miscarriage
In addition to millions of women annually, Meghan isn’t the only member of the royal family to suffer a miscarriage. Zara Tindall, Princess Anne’s daughter and Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter, also lost a pregnancy just a few years ago. Tindall and her brother Peter Phillips spoke about Meghan and much more in an interview with The Times newspaper in the UK.
“I had a miscarriage in 2016 and afterwards loads of people wrote to me and [husband] Mike to say they’d been through the same thing,” Tindall recalled. “In our case, it was something that was really rare; it was nature saying, ‘This one’s not right.’ For me, the worst bit was that we had to tell everyone — everyone knew.”
What was most heartbreaking for Tindall was that she had to give birth because she was so far along in her pregnancy. She credits her brother and her husband — along with the rest of her extended family — in helping her get through it. “It was a time when my family came to the fore and I needed them,” she said.
Tindall admitted that she experienced the same thing not long afterward. “I then had another miscarriage really early on,” she continued. “You need to go through a period where you don’t talk about it because it’s too raw but, as with everything, time’s a great healer.”
