Meghan Markle has candidly discussed her own miscarriage and the themes of loss and letting go on the newest instalment of her podcast, 'Confessions of a Female Founder'. The Duchess of Sussex sat down with Reshma Saujani, an American attorney and politician known for founding non-profit initiatives 'Girls Who Code' and 'Mom's First', organisations dedicated to boosting the presence of girls in computer science and supporting mothers.
During their heart-to-heart, Meghan enquired about Reshma's personal journey with miscarriage while spearheading Girls Who Code, a topic Reshma had previously opened up about. Reflecting on her own painful experience, Meghan disclosed her miscarriage through a touching essay in 2020 following Prince Archie's birth, and it was similarly touched upon by Prince Harry in his memoir, 'Spare'.
Addressing her guest, Meghan expressed: "I'll bring this up if you are comfortable talking about it... I have spoken about the miscarriage we experienced. And I think in some parallel way, when 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 go that you plan to love for a long time."
Reshma shared a deeply personal experience, saying: "Yeah. I feel like you are reading my diaries as that's really insightful as I don't think anyone has said it that way for me but that's right because here I was for so many years trying to get pregnant, having miscarriages because I had auto-immune issues and I got into this kind of scary habit where I would be in a doctor's office and they'd be like, you have no heartbeat."
She continued, revealing the emotional toll it took on her: "And I should have just gone home and gone to sleep and curled up with my husband. But I would just take a breath and I would just show up in a living room, on a stage and just perform. And often times I was just performing to these children that I desperately wanted and I just got really good at that but it was eating me up inside.", reports the Mirror.
The conversation between Meghan and Reshma, who is now a mother of two, also touched upon the challenges of balancing motherhood with professional life and the societal pressures women face to remain unbreakable and perpetually cheerful.
Meghan opened up about her own experiences as a mother: "Oh my gosh, I love being a mom so much, it's my favourite thing. But then sometimes, you're like I just need a break, I just need a minute, but then the second you step in the other room, I'm like, 'let me scroll through pictures of them endlessly on my phone'. And my husband is like 'my love' can you just give yourself a minute, why don't you go work out, or go take a bath. And I go, 'I know but I just want to cuddle them. It is the parenting paradigm, where it is so full on but I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Meghan Markle delved into the complexities of parenting during the pandemic, noting the overwhelming nature of merging work and home life. She shared, "But I think what's really key about what you said is that in the pandemic, when working from home and parenting from home, completely converged - and it can feel incredibly overwhelming."
In a candid conversation about the struggles of being a working mum, Meghan highlighted the importance of honesty. She explained, "With that comes the woman who is juggling it all and doing it all from home, being confident enough to tell the truth about what's going on, because you can't give grace to someone in the same way if you just have no sense of it... My kids, for example, right now, one has RSV, the other has influenza A."
Describing her own experience, she continued, "I hear a little pitter patter of feet upstairs, home from school, you know cough syrup all night and rubbing the back, and ... we still find a way to show up for both."
Meghan also reflected on Reshma's choice to leave her non-profit role and compared it with her own break from public life. She remarked, "When you don't have power you're not important anymore. Being able to let it go and give somebody else that light knowing it was actually going to diminish my power... but that was the point."
She further talked about the personal growth involved in stepping away from the spotlight, adding, "That is a lot of growth. That takes people a tremendous amount of time to settle into being able to do that and to not feel rattled when the phone's not ringing, to not feel rattled when you've stepped out the light so to speak.
"But as you step out of the light you're actually stepping into your own light in a different way and creating space for someone else to be in the light, which is probably the larger purpose of all of us being here."
Meghan's latest venture, Confessions Of A Female Founder, follows her controversial Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan and her new brand As Ever. She has vowed that the series will include "girl talk" and tips on how to build "billion-dollar businesses".
The debut episode dropped last week, coinciding with Prince Harry's appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for his ongoing legal battle concerning the security arrangements provided to him while in the UK. In the premiere, Meghan conversed with Whitney Wolfe Herd, the entrepreneur behind Bumble.
During their discussion, Meghan opened up about motherhood and disclosed a 'huge medical scare' she experienced post-childbirth.
She shared: "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. It's so rare and so scary," Meghan added.
Meghan shared: "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."
Whitney chimed in: "I mean life or death, truly."
Postpartum pre-eclampsia is an uncommon but serious condition that can cause high blood pressure after giving birth.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
