Meghan Markle Reflects on Having to ‘Detach’ in Rare Comment About Her 2020 Miscarriage

The Duchess of Sussex commented on her experience on the April 15 episode of her ‘Confessions of a Female Founder’ podcast while joined by Reshma Saujani

Meghan Markle is reflecting on the heartbreaking miscarriage she suffered nearly five years ago.

The Duchess of Sussex commented on her experience on the April 15 episode of her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast, where she was joined by Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code and CEO of Moms First.

Having listened to Saujani, 49, express the challenges she faced while working on Girls Who Code, Meghan, 43, shifted the conversation toward the difficulties of continuing to “perform” while privately navigating the pain of a miscarriage.

“I’ll bring this up if you’re comfortable talking about it because I know you’ve spoken publicly about as you’re doing Girls Who Code, all the interpersonal things that are happening for you at that time and the miscarriages that you’ve experienced,” Meghan said.

“I’ve spoken about the miscarriage that we experienced,” she continued. “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 okay at a certain point to let something go, something go that you plan to love for a long time.”

Meghan shares son Prince Archie 5, and daughter Princess Lilibet, 3, with her husband Prince Harry. 

Back in November 2020, she revealed in a first-hand account shared with The New York Times that she had suffered a miscarriage in July of that year.

In the personal essay of roughly over 1,000 words, Meghan recalled feeling a “sharp cramp” and dropping to the floor with Archie in her arms. 

“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second,” Meghan wrote. “Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few.”

On the podcast, Saujani described Meghan’s insight on her miscarriage as “really insightful” and as if the Duchess of Sussex was “reading my diaries.”

“I don’t think anyone’s seen it that way like, said it that way for me,” said Saujani. She then shared that she handed her business over to her team for a chance “just to breathe” after a “path of serial miscarriages.”

Meghan said it takes “courage” to ask for help as she shared a quote from a children’s book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

When Saujani later brought up not having to choose between being a “girl boss and a trad wife,” the pair bonded over their love of being mothers.

“I love being a mom. Oh my gosh. I love being a mom so much. It’s my favorite thing,” Meghan said. 

She added that it can be difficult to step into another room to take a break from her children as they’re constantly on her mind.

“Let me just scroll through pictures of them endlessly on my phone,” Meghan said. “Then my husband’s like, ‘My love, can you just give yourself a minute? Why don’t you go work out? Why don’t you go take a bath?’ “

“I’m like, I know, but I just want to cuddle,” she continued. “It’s the parenting paradigm where it is so full on, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I think what’s really key about what you said, and the pandemic may have been the thing that shifted this when working from home and parenting from home where they are completely converged [it] can feel incredibly overwhelming.”

In the debut episode of her podcast, Meghan was joined by Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, 35.

The pair discussed the delicate balance of motherhood and career, before revealing that they both experienced postpartum preeclampsia, a rare and potentially life-threatening condition marked by high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine shortly after giving birth, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“It’s so rare and so scary,” Meghan said on the April 8 episode. “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.”

The Duchess of Sussex and Lemonada Media announced on March 13 that Confessions of a Female Founder would focus on her journey of launching the As ever lifestyle brand (which sold out its first batch of products earlier this month) over conversations with female entrepreneurs.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Meghan shared how other women behind big brands have inspired her.

“What’s been meaningful is being able to talk about my own entrepreneurial journey with other female founders who are either on their own trajectory of growth or have IPO’d, sold, or created high-impact brands and gone through all of the learning curves that we all do at the start,” she said.

“You’re just trying to figure out how to walk, then you want to learn how to run, and then you want to learn how to fly. All of those things take time. There’s also something very exciting and energizing about learning something new as we get older,” she continued. “The entrepreneurial journey, for anyone, is a lot, and I’m also really, really lucky that so many of my close friends are female founders that I can glean advice from.”