by Omid Scobie
Her first day in the city, Meghan met up with Jessica, who took her for macarons and tea in SoHo bakery Ladurée, which offered them a private space. The expectant mom also bought baby clothes at the fancy French children’s store Bonpoint. But it was her first night walking around New York City’s West Village that Meghan truly felt like her old self. Dressed all in black with her hair down, she went virtually unnoticed. One man pulled out his phone to take a photo before he was stopped by her protection officer, who was walking several steps behind Meghan. But that was nothing compared to the crowds she dealt with in the UK.
Four days later, however, after Meghan had moved to the Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side, the paparazzi were out in full force after news leaked that she was having a star-studded baby shower hosted by Serena Williams and Meghan’s college friend Genevieve.
Serena had reserved the Grand Penthouse at the Mark, where approximately twenty of Meghan’s closest friends from her teenage years to the present gathered for a party, described by one guest as “chill and relaxed.” Meghan loved having nearly all of her friends in one place. Coordinated by Jennifer Zabinski of JZ Events, who had also planned Serena’s 2017 wedding to Internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, the event featured a color scheme of blues, pinks, yellows, and greens—with no hint to the gender of the baby. Not that the genderless creations were necessary, as Meghan quietly shared that she was expecting a boy with a number of friends at the fete, such as Amal Clooney, who hadn’t already been told.
The guests—including Misha, Gayle King, Jessica, wellness guru Taryn Toomey, Lindsay, NBC cable entertainment chief Bonnie Hammer, actress and close pal Janina Gavankar, and her Suits costar Abigail Spencer—dined on a menu prepared by the Michelin-star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten while the harpist Erin Hill played in the background. The shower was co-ed; makeup artist Daniel Martin, hairdresser Serge Normant, and Markus were on hand to celebrate as well.
The party had a flower-arranging lesson led by the New York florist Lewis Miller, who became famous for his “Flower Flashes,” a series of random pop-up floral arrangements he designed throughout the city on everything from trash cans to landmarks. The guests’ floral arrangements were donated to Repeat Roses, which supplies floral arrangements from events to hospitals, nursing homes, homeless shelters, and other facilities rather than throwing them out.
Then it was dessert, displayed alongside gold-embellished containers filled with sugar crystals, into which stork-shaped cookies had been arranged. The cake was a two-tier white-fondant confection decorated with paper figures of Meghan, Harry, and a stroller. But there were also Ladurée macaron towers, key lime and cherry tarts, red velvet and carrot cakes, cotton candy pompoms, and a jar of multicolored gluten-free doughnut holes.
Meghan left for the UK on a high. As she boarded the Clooneys’ private jet with Amal, who was traveling with her twins, Ella and Alexander, Daniel, her makeup artist and friend, sent her a text that Beyoncé and Jay-Z had just paid tribute to Meghan at the BRIT Awards. “I think all I wrote was ‘Girl,’ ” said Daniel, who attached the video of the Carters in front of a regal portrait of Meghan in a crown by illustrator Tim O’Brien. “She wrote me back, like, the big-eye emoji.”
But while the trip had been a hit with Meghan, senior courtiers back in the UK were spitting out their morning tea when they saw her lavish baby shower thrown by friends turn into a media circus with what looked like carefully stage-managed paparazzi walks of the duchess in big black sunglasses from her hotel to her car and a laundry list of insider party details reported by US press.
“It’s fair to say that the optics of the somewhat flashy shower did not go down well with certain individuals at the Palace,” a senior aide revealed. Meghan was often criticized for being too Hollywood, meaning too flashy. Especially for the reserved aesthetic of the monarchy. “I think a few people that had defended her over the months felt a little disappointed. But sometimes in this role you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Ultimately, the trip was just Meghan’s friends celebrating a really exciting moment in her life.”
Meghan didn’t have much time to absorb any backlash, as just forty-eight hours after returning to London, she was on another plane with Harry, bound for Morocco, at the request of the British government. In her final trimester she was full of energy and showed no signs of slowing down as she hit the ground running on the first day of the trip. Climbing into a helicopter to fly deep into Morocco’s Atlas Mountains for a charity that provided educational opportunities to girls from rural parts of Morocco, Education for All, Meghan put on her noise-isolating headphones, held Harry’s hand, and took a deep breath as the chopper took off. “Her energy is boundless,” British Ambassador to Morocco Thomas Reilly, who escorted the duke and duchess on their three-day visit to the country, said. “Here’s a woman jumping into a helicopter to fly 1,400 meters [almost 4,600 feet] high, still smiling and ready to do it all, ready to push the issues that matter.”
While at one of the charity’s boardinghouses in the small town of Asni, Meghan impressed the accompanying press with her ability to put some of the nervous students at ease, even asking a few questions in French. “No girl in this country should get left behind,” Meghan said of the visit. “It’s important that every girl has access to further and higher education.”
From gender equality and universal education opportunities to social entrepreneurship and female empowerment, the visit’s three-day itinerary shone a spotlight on the issues most important to Meghan. Prince Harry, already established as a humanitarian force of his own, often let Meghan take the lead during their nine Moroccan engagements, leaning into her ear periodically to see if his wife was feeling “okay” along the way.
There was even an appearance for Together: Our Community Cookbook with a Moroccan chef. The collection of fifty recipes from women impacted by the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire included a foreword written by Meghan and had hit the top of Amazon’s list within hours of its publication five months earlier. It was one of Meghan’s biggest royal achievements to date, but it had all started with a private visit to a small West London community kitchen that helped families affected by the tragic fire that left seventy-two dead and hundreds homeless.
Meghan threw on an apron to help a group of women at the Al Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, though the plan was never to do anything more than volunteer at the space where women cooked food for families and the local community. “She just wanted to help,” Zahira Ghaswala, the kitchen’s coordinator, said. “Within moments of arriving the first time, she was helping wash the rice, make chapatis, serve food.”
By her second visit, Meghan came up with an idea to raise money for the kitchen, which at the time was only able to run two days a week. “We should do a cookbook,” she told the women. Inspired by her ambition, the women worked closely with the duchess. “We didn’t think it would move so quickly!” Zahira said. With Meghan on first-name terms with all the women at the kitchen, it wasn’t uncommon for her to pop by unannounced, always greeted with kisses and hugs. “She is like family,” the kitchen’s project manager Intlak Al Saiegh said. “The children love her, too. She would always sit them on her lap and talk to them.”
The feeling was mutual. “I immediately felt connected to this community kitchen; it is a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry, and cook together,” Meghan wrote in the cookbook’s foreword. “Melding cultural identities under a shared roof, it creates a space to feel a sense of normalcy—in its simplest form, the universal need to connect, nurture, and commune through food, through crisis or joy—something we can all relate to.”
At a book party held at Kensington Palace, Doria made a surprise appearance, flying in from LA to stay with her daughter and son-in-law for a few days. “Hi, I’m Meg’s mom,” Doria said to the women from the kitchen gathered at the event. “I’ve heard a lot about everyone here . . . It’s great to be able to see you all.”
After showing her mother around, Meghan gave an
off-the-cuff speech. “I had just recently moved to London, and I felt so immediately embraced by the women in the kitchen,” she said. “Their warmth, their kindness, and also the ability to be in this city and to see in this one small room how multicultural it was . . . I feel so proud to live in a city that can have so much diversity. [There are] twelve countries represented in this one group of women! It’s pretty outstanding.” Doria was suitably impressed. “The power of women,” she said. “We make things happen. We’re curious. We say yes, we show up. I’m inspired.”
By the time Harry and Meghan were on their tour of Morocco, Together: Our Community Cookbook had become a New York Times bestseller, with 71,000 copies sold in its first seven weeks. In an afternoon cooking with the Moroccan chef Moha Fedal, the couple made a Moroccan pancake recipe from the cookbook with disabled staff who work at a specially designed restaurant in the capital of Rabat. “They’ll be so proud to see this,” Meghan said of the book making its Moroccan debut. “The message has traveled far.”
After the overseas trip, Meghan began to slow down ahead of her maternity leave. Air travel was now off-limits. Given the continued negative commentary in sections of the British press, being back in England wasn’t necessarily much more restful. While Meghan had never gotten accustomed to all the reporting on her, by the end of her pregnancy, she couldn’t bear the unnecessary criticism. The maternity clothes she chose or how she held her bump were all fodder for the tabloids. It was as if she couldn’t even be pregnant in a way that was acceptable to the media. She likened the attacks to a friend as “death by a thousand cuts.”
Meghan was suffering terribly. As she anxiously expected the arrival of her first child, she felt fragile and very emotional. Harry tried his best to be everything his wife needed, but he felt this was the moment for his family to step in. But no one in the royal family made that move.
There were plans for Meghan to attend a couple of engagements in the final weeks of her pregnancy, including Harry’s tree planting in support of the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy forest conservation initiative on March 20. But in the end, Meghan didn’t feel up to it—she was more comfortable doing other work from home.
There was never any pressure on Meghan to work, but as a friend, who jokingly called her “Super Meg,” said, “It takes a lot to put [her] out of action.” Communications secretary Sara Latham often dropped by for meetings at Frogmore Cottage, which she and Harry moved into the first week of April. Despite reports of over a monthlong delay to the renovation works, the couple moved into the house only nine days later than expected—quite a feat considering the gut renovation started in early October 2018.
Meghan’s spirits were buoyed by the visits of close friends, including Daniel, who arrived at the cottage on April 6 to find Meghan “incredibly calm and just enjoying the last days with the bump.” Harry and Meghan cooked for the makeup artist—with Harry doing most of the work in the kitchen. “There was no nervousness, and she and Harry seemed so happy at the new house,” he said.
Doria arrived at Frogmore on April 16 to help out as her daughter’s due date of April 28 neared. On her commercial flight from LA, a passenger approached her to ask if she was Meghan’s mother. “I’m the proud mom!” replied Doria, who as soon as she landed at Heathrow was driven straight to the cottage.
While it was a comfort to have her mom with her, Harry was constantly looking after his wife as well, making sure she was physically comfortable and getting her snacks. Guacamole and crudités was as close as she got to junk food. Not because she doesn’t like it; she just didn’t crave it.
While she didn’t worry about her weight, Meghan jokingly called herself “a balloon” to a friend as her due date came and went. Her engagement ring no longer fit. As her pregnancy went on into the first week of May, she stuck with the modified yoga routine she had done every morning throughout. She also made long walks with their two dogs part of her daily ritual upon moving to Frogmore.
Despite being overdue, the couple still had people stop by at the house to visit. Sara kept up her visits, including one on Friday, May 3, where she described Meghan as “calm and content.” The next day, Gayle King, in Windsor to film a CBS documentary for Harry and Meghan’s one-year anniversary, popped by for an hour. Gayle left impressed at how much energy the duchess still had.
By May 6, Meghan was several days past her due date. “The longest eight days of her life!” a friend said. “But her patience and calm were amazing during that time—she just said, ‘The baby will come when it comes.’ And that was that.”
20
Welcoming Archie
Harry jumped behind the wheel of the navy blue Range Rover where Meghan and Doria were waiting in the back seat on the night of Sunday, May 5. With a protection officer also in the car and a team of them in an accompanying Range Rover, the prince started off on the twenty-eight-mile route from Frogmore Cottage to the Portland Hospital in central London.
While Meghan was originally interested in a home birth, as she entered her final trimester she chose to deliver in a hospital. Although there were reports that Meghan was “devastated” to have her dream home birth plans dashed at the last minute, a source said that by the time Meghan went into labor, those plans had long been put to rest. “I know there were stories about a home birth, and it was certainly something that was discussed early on,” the source said, “but Meg knew it would be a hospital birth for a few months.
“All she cared about was having the baby in the safest way possible,” the source added. “She was more and more nervous as she approached the due date, so I would say in some ways it was a relief for her to be doing it in a traditional hospital.”
Also contradictory to reports, Meghan never considered giving birth at the Lindo Wing, where Kate delivered all three of her children, Diana had William and Harry, and Princess Anne had Peter and Zara. Meghan wanted somewhere more discreet than St. Mary’s Hospital.
The Portland Hospital—a US-owned hospital popular with celebrities and the expat American community in London—was where Beatrice and Eugenie were born. It offered not only state-of-the-art care but also an underground entrance, where blacked-out SUVs driving in and out were the norm. Harry and Meghan, who were never spotted entering or leaving Portland, didn’t tell anyone about their hospital choice, not even their closest aides or friends.
The only people who did know were Doria and Meghan’s medical team, which included her ob-gyn, Penelope Law, who was one of Portland’s top obstetricians—as well as a countess (she was the wife of the seventh Earl of Bradford). Still, she told her patients to call her “Dr. Penny.” Despite her reputation at the hospital of being “too posh to pull,” referring to the high rate of C-sections she performs, she is pro–natural delivery. Meghan did not deliver by C-section, although the couple refused to comment on the details of the birth. A source said that Meghan “took the advice” of doctors, who attended Frogmore Cottage every day in the days leading up to her hospital admission—and at 5:26 a.m. on Monday, May 6, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, seventh in line to the throne and weighing seven pounds, three ounces, was born in an uncomplicated birth. Meghan was simply relieved it had gone well—and to have her “beautiful, sweet little boy” in her arms for the first time.
“Archie was alert as soon as he arrived—eyes wide-open,” a friend said. “Meghan described the moment she first held Archie as ‘ecstasy . . . total bliss and contentment.’ ” A trusted confidant added, “Like any new mother, you can’t fully know what to expect until you have been through it.”
Harry and Meghan already had a name ready to go when Archie was born, because the couple had known all along that they were having a boy. According to a source, they settled on their son’s name some time during the final week of her pregnancy. The couple wanted something traditional, a name that was powerful even without a title in front of it. Archie, meaning strength and bravery, fit the bill. “They thought about Archibald for all of one second,” a friend of th
e couple said with a laugh. “He was always going to be little Archie.” (Mountbatten-Windsor is the surname used by all male descendants of the Queen and Prince Philip. Royals with titles don’t typically use surnames.)
Harry and Meghan—who were going to register Archie for dual citizenship—decided to forgo a title for their son, because they wanted him to be a private citizen until he was at an age where he could decide which path he would like to take. A source said the pair both worried about the day Prince Charles becomes king and Harry’s children could inherit the titles of prince or princess. They shared their concerns with Charles, who said he would consider when he became king issuing a new letters patent, a legal instrument in the form of a written order issued by a reigning monarch, that would change this style. “To not have a senior role in the royal family but have a title,” a senior aide close to the couple said at the time, “is just a burden.”
Harry took to texting and calling friends (including Skippy, who he was speaking with more regularly at this point) and family with the happy news of Archie’s arrival. He started with the Queen and Prince Philip, who were the first to hear the news about the arrival of their eighth great-grandchild. He then sent his father and brother texts alongside a photo of his new son, before notifying other family members—including Princess Anne’s daughter, Zara, and her husband, the rugby legend Mike Tindall—through the special cousins-only WhatsApp group that all royals were a part of. Harry also made sure he was the one to tell all of Diana’s family—his two aunts Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes and his uncle Earl Charles Spencer. He also couldn’t forget Tiggy, who he had wanted to pick as a godmother to his son or daughter long before he became a father.