Meghan Markle discloses miscarriage in a candid op-ed urging compassion

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, revealed that she had a miscarriage over the summer in a remarkable New York Times op-ed published Wednesday. "Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few," she wrote, adding that "despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning."

Markle's op-ed follows Chrissy Teigen's essay about her miscarriage in September, but while Teigen and her husband, John Legend, frequently share stories about their personal and family lives, Britain's royal family keeps a famously tight lid on private issues.

Markle, 39, and her husband, Prince Harry, stepped back from being senior royals in January and now live more or less quietly in California with their 1-year-old son, Archie. "After changing his diaper, I felt a sharp cramp," she writes in her op-ed, describing what had been an otherwise "ordinary" July morning. "I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second. Hours later, I lay in a hospital bed, holding my husband's hand," watching his "heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine."

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The duchess turned their private grief into a larger rumination on a year that "has brought so many of us to our breaking points," from COVID-19 to the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd to the deep divisions that have fractured the U.S. into siloed factions and individuals. "That polarization, coupled with the social isolation required to fight this pandemic, has left us feeling more alone than ever," Markle writes, and she kept returning to a question that might save us: "Are you okay?"

"This Thanksgiving, as we plan for a holiday unlike any before — many of us separated from our loved ones, alone, sick, scared, divided, and perhaps struggling to find something, anything, to be grateful for — let us commit to asking others, 'Are you okay?'" Markle writes, suggesting that if we do, and if we really see one another, "we will be." Read her full op-ed at The New York Times.