Meghan Markle reveals the "excruciating pain" she felt from the miscarriage she suffered a few months ago
"An almost unbearable pain experienced by many, but about which few speak."
In a harsh and poignant article, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, revealed on Wednesday that she suffered a miscarriage last July, in an express attempt to tear down the taboo on it.
"I learned, while hugging my first-born, that I was losing my second child," Markle wrote in an opinion piece published in The New York Times, in which he also speaks on the health and social crisis in the United States.
In the text, titled "The Losses We Share", the Duchess of Sussex reveals how she and her husband, Prince Harry, experienced that loss; urges society to have greater empathy and regrets the polarization in her country.
"Perhaps the road to recovery begins with three simple words: are you okay? [From the English" Are you OK? "]".
A source close to the Duchess of Sussex confirmed to the BBC that she is currently in good condition and that the couple wanted to talk about what had happened in July after realizing how common miscarriages are.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment on the matter: "It is a deeply personal matter that we will not comment on."
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to California to get away from the media spotlight, after stepping away from their royal duties in January.
Their first child, Archie, was born on May 6, 2019.
Mother and feminist
Markle begins her article by describing a morning in July that seemed like any other until, after changing her firstborn's diaper, she felt a "severe cramp."
"I fell to the ground with him [Archie] in my arms (...) I knew, while hugging my first-born, that I was losing my second son," he relates.
Hours later, Markle would be in a hospital holding her husband's hand. "I felt the moisture on her palm and kissed her knuckles, damp from our tears."
In the opinion of the Duchess of Sussex, losing a child "means suffering almost unbearable pain, experienced by many but few speak of."
"In the grief of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them had suffered a miscarriage. Yet, as amazingly common as this suffering is, this conversation remains taboo, plagued with (unjustified) shame, and perpetuating a process of solitary mourning. "
"Sitting on a hospital bed, watching my husband's heart break as he tried to grasp the shattered pieces of mine, I realized that the only way to start recovering was to ask, 'Are you okay?"
The Duchess of Sussex mentions an interview they did during a tour of South Africa, in which she highlighted her sincerity about her situation. In it, the journalist asked her if she was okay and she thanked him for the gesture, being sincere at a time when she was trying to "maintain a brave face in public."
In the midst of the media pressure on the couple then and shortly after Archie was born, Markle revealed that she had been naive about the role that British tabloids would play and that she had been warned they would "destroy" her life.
"I answered her honestly, not knowing that what I said would resonate with so many people - more new and more experienced moms, and anyone who had been, in their own way, silently suffering."
America's crises
It is in those words (are you okay?) That the 39-year-old Duchess of Sussex urges us to begin to face the difficult circumstances that many people have had to experience this year due to the coronavirus or police violence.
The Duchess of Sussex mentions some of the most controversial cases that occurred this year in the United States, which led to massive protests against racism, such as that of Breonna Taylor or George Floyd.
It also regrets that, amid the profound health and social crisis in the United States, society can no longer agree on what is true.
"We are not only arguing about our opinions of the facts, we are polarized on whether the fact is, in fact, a fact," he emphasizes.
"We disagree on whether the science is real ... on whether an election has been won or lost," he says. "Polarization, along with the social isolation required to combat this pandemic, has made us feel more alone than ever."
Analysis by Jonnyt Dymond, BBC Royal House Correspondent
Markle made it clear from her first event as Prince Harry's fiancee that she wanted women's voices and their experiences to be heard more clearly.
Now she has written about her loss, and her heartbreak. It has done so in the framework of a year of overwhelming turbulence. And she has made a case for tolerance and compassion.
The Duchess of Sussex intertwines the struggles of so many with COVID-19, the battles over truth and lies in this divisive time, and the deaths of African Americans at the hands of the police.
And about an experience that so many women have endured, she turns her grief into a way to make miscarriages an everyday conversation.
line
Markle is the second member of the royal family to speak publicly of a miscarriage.
In 2018, Queen's granddaughter Zara Tindall revealed that she had suffered two miscarriages before having her second child.
