'I knew, As I Clutched My Firstborn Child, That I Was Losing My Second' - Meghan

In a deeply personal and heartbreaking piece for the New York Times titled The Losses We Share, the Duchess of Sussex has written about the pain and unbearable grief following a miscarriage. "It was a July morning that began as ordinarily as any other day: Make breakfast. Feed the dogs. Take vitamins. Find that missing sock. Pick up the rogue crayon that rolled under the table. Throw my hair in a ponytail before getting my son from his crib. 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. I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second. 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."

More from the New York Times:

“Are you OK?” a journalist asked me. I answered him honestly, not knowing that what I said would resonate with so many — new moms and older ones, and anyone who had, in their own way, been silently suffering. My off-the-cuff reply seemed to give people permission to speak their truth. But it wasn’t responding honestly that helped me most, it was the question itself.

“Thank you for asking,” I said. “Not many people have asked if I’m OK.”

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

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

The Duchess touched on the collective effects of 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on so many, the loss of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the increasing feeling "we are at odds": 

'When I was in my late teens, I sat in the back of a taxi zipping through the busyness and bustle of Manhattan. I looked out the window and saw a woman on her phone in a flood of tears. She was standing on the sidewalk, living out a private moment very publicly. At the time, the city was new to me, and I asked the driver if we should stop to see if the woman needed help.

He explained that New Yorkers live out their personal lives in public spaces. “We love in the city, we cry in the street, our emotions and stories there for anybody to see,” I remember him telling me. “Don’t worry, somebody on that corner will ask her if she’s OK.”

Now, all these years later, in isolation and lockdown, grieving the loss of a child, the loss of my country’s shared belief in what’s true, I think of that woman in New York. What if no one stopped? What if no one saw her suffering? What if no one helped?'

Meghan has been praised for courageously sharing her experience. 

The Duchess closed with a poignant message for Thanksgiving "We are adjusting to a new normal where faces are concealed by masks, but it’s forcing us to look into one another’s eyes - sometimes filled with warmth, other times with tears. For the first time, in a long time, as human beings, we are really seeing one another. Are we OK? We will be." Meghan is described as a "mother, feminist and advocate" in the article. 

Click here to read the piece in its entirety.

I was so sorry and saddened to hear about Meghan and Harry's loss. I am glad they were able to get through the past several months without the world knowing and only share their experience when they felt ready. Meghan's words will mean a great deal to the many woman who know the same pain, the same loss, the same grief. In all they've been through, the strength of Harry and Meghan's love has been evident every step of the way. Meghan's words "watching my husband’s heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine" were incredibly moving to read. I know we're all thinking of them today.

Tommy's, a charity funding research into miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth thanked Meghan for breaking the silence.