Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle will soon have another reason to smile.Getty Images
Little Archie’s days as an only child will soon be over! Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are now expecting their second child.
In an announcement on Sunday, Harry and the former Meghan Markle revealed that another baby royal is on the way. “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child,” a spokesperson for the couple said in a statement.
The photographer of the announcement photo, Misan Harriman, a longtime friend of the couple, reflected on Twitter on capturing the moment.
“Meg, I was there at your wedding to witness this love story begin, and my friend, I am honoured to capture it grow,” he wrote. “Congratulations to The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on this joyous news!”
Buckingham Palace released a statement following the exciting announcement. “The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the entire family are delighted and wish them well,” a spokesperson said.
The new addition to the Sussex clan will be the fifth grandchild of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana.
But for mom and dad, who wed in 2018, baby No. 2 will also be will be “rainbow baby” No. 1. That’s the term used to refer to a child born following a previous miscarriage or neonatal death, and in July of 2020, Meghan and Harry suffered such a loss.
The duchess opened up about it in an op-ed for The New York Times in November, writing that the pregnancy loss they endured brought with it “an almost unbearable grief.”
“Hours later, I lay in a hospital bed, holding my husband’s hand,” she wrote. “I felt the clamminess of his palm and kissed his knuckles, wet from both our tears. Staring at the cold white walls, my eyes glazed over. I tried to imagine how we’d heal.”
The arrival of the child they’re now expecting will likely play a role in that path toward healing.
It’s also possible that baby No. 2 will be the last for the royal parents. In an interview in the September 2019 issue of British Vogue, which was guest edited by Meghan, Harry spoke to Jane Goodall about climate change — a topic he told the conservationist he’d given even more thought to since having a child of his own. But at the mention of children, Goodall playfully warned him, for the sake of the environment, not to have “too many.”
In response, the prince assured they would only have “two, maximum!”
Of course, only time will tell if that prediction holds true.
Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, did not announce a due date for their second baby. Until their bundle arrives, get ready for more maternity fashions, bump cradling and maybe even another round of twin talk. After all, when Meghan was pregnant with their son, whose full name is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, royal watchers seemed obsessed with every detail — but they weren’t the only ones.
Tabloids also fixated on the former actor during her first pregnancy, a point Harry mentioned in a statement that he made in October 2019, on the same day it was revealed that Meghan had filed suit against one publishing group.
“Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences — a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son,” he wrote at the time.
He went on to explain that he feared the repercussions if the same sort of negative coverage continued. But it was he and Meghan who had a surprise of their own when it seemed there was no relief in sight.
In January of 2020, the couple announced that they were stepping back from life as senior royals.
“Once Meghan and I were married, we were excited, we were hopeful, and we were here to serve,” Harry explained in a speech days after their decision was revealed. “For those reasons, it brings me great sadness that it has come to this.”
“This” being the event that was soon dubbed “Megxit” — wherein Harry and Meghan traded in the high-profile lives of active royals for new roles that would allow them to spend more time away from the British media, in their relocated home in California, and still pursue their charitable passions.
Though Harry and Meghan no longer use their “royal highness” titles (also known as HRH), the prince remains in the British line of succession. Harry is sixth in line to the throne held by his grandmother, which puts Archie at seventh and their second child at eighth.
But for right now, the couple isn’t focused on the throne, their titles or the troubling tabloid headlines of the past. Today their attention is on happier headlines — ones about the baby on the way.
Congratulations to Harry and Meghan — and to Archie, too!
