Meghan Markle has opened up about her devastating loss as she revealed she had suffered a miscarriage over the summer.
In her heartbreaking essay for the New York Times, the Duchess of Sussex revealed how she instantly knew that “something was not right” after feeling a sudden “sharp cramp” while tending to little Archie on a July morning.
“After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp.point 367 |
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.point 129 | I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second,” Meghan wrote in her piece for the New York Times.point 229 | 1
Once in the hospital, the Duchess was told that her worst fears were true and that the couple had lost their baby.
“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,” she added.
“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?’”
As the Duchess went on to explain, she and her husband found out that ten to twenty out of 100 women suffer a miscarriage. As Meghan pointed out, however, the topic remains a taboo that comes along with “a cycle of solitary mourning.”
“Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few,” the 39-year-old expressed.
“(…) Some have bravely shared their stories; they have opened the door, knowing that when one person speaks truth, it gives license for all of us to do the same.
“We have learned that when people ask how any of us are doing, and when they really listen to the answer, with an open heart and mind, the load of grief often becomes lighter — for all of us.”
Our thoughts are with Harry and Meghan and all other people who have been affected by miscarriage.
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