Meghan Markle Reveals ‘Huge Health Scare’ After Giving Birth
According to the report by
DailyMail, 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 Markle speaks with her friend, the entrepreneur Whitney Wolfe Herd, who
founded the female-focused dating app Bumble and co-founded Tinder.
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 this morning 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 Markle 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.
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 this morning 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.
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.'
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.
'Their well-being is our wellbeing. And so I think it forces you to
prioritise in ways that, for me, I never did before.'
Meghan also
talked about balancing home and work life, and explained how her daughter
Lilibet would sometimes come into her office at their property in Montecito,
California, following a nap.
She told Wolfe Herd: 'We became moms in the pandemic, post-pandemic
culture, where there is so much working from home… I don't leave the house to
go to an office; my office is here.
'Lili still
naps, she gets picked up early and she naps. She only has a half day in
preschool. If she wakes up and wants to find me, she knows where to find me,
even if my door is closed to the office.
'She'll be
sitting there on my lap during one of these meetings with a grid of all the
executives… I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't want to miss those
moments. I don't want to miss pickup if I don't have to. I don't want to miss
drop-off.'
The Duchess
continued: 'What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter
while I'm building [my business], is the perspective that it brings because
you're building something while your child's going through potty training...and
both are just as important…
'It's like,
'Great, OK, where's the Cheerios? Well done.' And then you're championing your
team ten minutes later about something that is really high value for the world.
In your own world, that's super high value. And in [Lilibet's] world, that's
super high value.'
Wolfe Herd
added: 'Technology is a beautiful tool for parents because you can dial in and
be present and do a great job on the call while you sit in the carpool line
outside school.
'Like, why do
I need to be at a desk? I have the same mental opinion in a carpool line.'
Wolfe Herd
also described Meghan as 'such an amazing hostess', adding: 'When you go to
your home, you're, like, engulfed in love and coziness, just carry - you -
through, and the rest writes itself.'
The series is
the latest in the former Suits actress's flurry of output after her
much-criticised Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan and her new brand As
Ever.
Meghan also
released a series of throwback photos to accompany the podcast's release,
saying: 'Being an entrepreneur can start young. (By the way, all these years
later and I'm still selling cookies!)
'Tune in for
the premiere episode of 'Confessions of a Female Founder' featuring my dear
friend, @whitney, now streaming wherever you get your podcasts!
@lemonadamedia.'
The pictures
showed her selling cookies while wearing a brown Girl Scouts uniform - a nod to
her new lifestyle brand As Ever and its shortbread butter cookies.
The Duchess also told the New York Times in
an email: 'I hope 'Confessions of a Female Founder' reminds listeners they're
not alone. These are honest conversations with women who've built from the
ground up, faced challenges and kept going.'
The newspaper
reported that Meghan and Wolfe Herd 'discussed navigating media scrutiny,
shaping a brand, spreading kindness, embracing self-love, prioritising family
and finding strategies to tackle it all'.
Both the New York Times and People had
advance access to the podcast before it was released on Lemonada Media and
other platforms such as Spotify and Apple.
A trailer for the show was released on
March 25, with Meghan promising 'girl talk' and advice on how to create
'billion-dollar businesses'.
Meghan told one guest to think of the
experience as being in a 'dolphin tank' rather than a 'shark tank', asked
another whether she is single now, talks about the 'laser focus' needed in
business, and finished her voiceover with: 'Let's do this, ladies.'
The eight-part podcast series is also
expected to follow the Duchess's work on her As Ever brand which has now begun
selling jam, herbal teas, flower sprinkles and ready-make crepe mix.
The new show is part of a deal signed
in February last year with Lemonada Media, which follows her previous series
Archetypes which aired on Spotify in 2022.
That show about female stereotypes ran
for just one series, and was part of the Sussexes' previous £20million deal
with Spotify, which ended the year after.
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