Meghan makes a rare comment on her miscarriage and reveals how she ‘learned to cope’ after losing a child

Meghan Markle has revealed how she had to ‘learn to detach’ after suffering a miscarriage.

In the new episode of her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder, the Montecito-based Duchess of Sussex, 43, spoke about the loss of her child in conversation with friend and Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, who has also suffered miscarriages.

Writing in the New York Times in 2020, Meghan revealed she lost her second child after feeling a ‘sharp cramp’ while changing her son Archie’s nappy in July that year.

She told how she fell ill at home in Los Angeles before going to the hospital, describing herself watching her husband Prince Harry‘s ‘heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine’ while grieving for their unborn baby.

‘I’ll bring this up if you’re comfortable talking about it, because I know you’ve spoken publicly,’ Meghan said as she approached the conversation topic with Reshma on the Lemonada Media show.

The 43-year-old likened miscarriage to letting go of a business and stepping down from a company.

She said: ‘I’ve spoken about the miscarriage that we experienced, and I think in some parallel way, you have to learn to detach from the thing that you have so much promise and hope for, and to be able to be ok at a certain point to let something go, something that you planned to love for a long time.’

After hearing Meghan’s take, Reshma responded, saying: ‘I feel like you’re reading my diary, that’s really insightful.’

The Duchess of Sussex (seen in her Netflix show, With Love, Meghan) made a rare comment on her miscarriage in the latest episode of her podcast

Elsewhere, Meghan commented on her love of parenting Archie, six, and Lilibet, three, saying: ‘I love being a mum so much, it’s my favourite thing.’

She added that when leaving them for a moment in another room, she can worry about their wellbeing and ‘scroll through pictures of them endlessly’.

‘My husband is like, “My love, can you just give yourself a minute? Why don’t you take a bath? Why don’t you go workout?” I’m like, “I know but I just want a cuddle”.’

It comes after Meghan revealed she had a ‘huge medical scare’ after giving birth in the first episode of her new podcast Confessions Of A Female Founder.

The Duchess of Sussex announced the arrival of the new Lemonada Media show by posting a series of throwback photos on Instagram of her selling cookies as a child.

In the first episode, Meghan spoke with her friend, the entrepreneur Whitney Wolfe Herd, who founded the female-focused dating app Bumble and co-founded Tinder.

Meghan revealed how she had to ‘learn to detach’ after suffering a miscarriage (seen with Prince Harry, Archie, and Lilibet in 2021)

Both women discussed how they had suffered from postpartum preeclampsia, a condition related to high blood pressure and excess protein in urine in the days or weeks after giving birth – which Wolfe Herd described as ‘life or death, truly’.

It was released just hours after Meghan’s husband Prince Harry landed in the UK, and King Charles III jetted off to Italy with Queen Camilla for a four-day state visit.

The Duke of Sussex then arrived at the High Court for an appeal against a ruling on whether he is entitled to armed bodyguards paid for by the taxpayer.

In the podcast interview recorded in February, Meghan said to Wolfe Herd: ‘We both had very similar experiences – though we didn’t know each other at the time – with postpartum, and we both had preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia.’

Meghan did not reveal whether she suffered the condition after the birth of her son Prince Archie, five, or her daughter Princess Lilibet, three. Wolfe Herd has two sons.

The Duchess added: ‘It’s so rare and so scary. And you’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly.

‘And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children – but those things are huge medical scares.’ Wolfe Herd added: ‘I mean life or death, truly.’

Wolfe Herd spoke about Meghan and Harry introducing their newborn son Archie to the world in a photocall at St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle in May 2019, two days after his birth.

Meghan invited Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani (pictured in New York, 2017) on the third episode of her podcast

Pictured: Harry and Meghan with their baby son in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019

She told the Duchess: ‘I mean, I’ll never forget the image of you after you delivered Archie, and the whole world was waiting for his debut.

‘I was either just becoming or about to become a new mom, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, how is this woman doing this? How is this woman putting on heels and going and debuting a child in this, you know, beautiful outfit in front of the entire world?’

Wolfe Herd added: ‘I could barely face a doorbell delivery for takeout food in a robe’ – to which Meghan laughed.

Meghan also called Wolfe Herd a ‘wildly successful female entrepreneur’ and ‘the kind of friend who just always seems to know the exact right thing to say when I need perspective’.

Wolfe Herd spoke about Meghan’s ‘brutalising’ time in the public eye, telling her: ‘I do think there is so much to be said for your ability to exist, even in the presence of that.

‘It takes a very strong cookie. When I was going through the media storm and being called this and that, and this and that, at Tinder, I didn’t leave my house for, like, a month and a half.’

Meghan told Wolfe Herd about being ‘absolutely consumed with packaging’, adding: ‘Boxes. It’s all I could think about. I would sit there doing the unboxing in my head: Is there tissue paper? 

‘What about the packing peanuts, but they’re biodegradable? Where does the sticker go, and what size the box is going to be?’

She also made reference to a ‘porch pirate’ – a term for someone who steals packages left on porches or doorsteps after delivery.

Meghan said: ‘Someone says, ‘But you don’t want to brand the outside of the box, because of porch pirates. Had never heard that before. What’s a porch pirate?’

Wolfe Herd also said that the ‘one thing you can never get back is time’.

She told the Duchess: ‘The amount of time, Meg, that I wasted on being stressed, being miserable, being overwhelmed, being paranoid about what shoe was going to drop. I actually think I would have been more successful had I not been like that.’

However, Meghan replied, ‘But can you turn it off? I say this because last night, I was – you know when your brain goes in a loop? Those 3am loops, and you can’t stop overthinking the thing.’

Wolfe Herd explained how she has followed the ‘rule of fives.’

She said: ‘Will this matter in five minutes? Five hours? Five days? Yes or no. If it’s not going to matter in five years, throw it out the window.’

And Wolfe Herd told her: ‘I think you have to really take a deep breath and say, ‘You know what, how big of a deal is this? If this is not going to be a defining issue in your business, your life, your family in five years, like, you’ll be fine.’

She also said: ‘When you’re ruminating in the middle of the night and you’re like, ‘Oh, but the box came out the wrong texture.’ Well, is that a problem in five months? Not really because you can switch that box.’ 

They also talked about how having children had change their perspectives on life, with Wolfe Herd telling Meghan: ‘I think being a mother, as you know, nothing comes before that.