It was too raw to talk about: Zara reveals her heartache over second miscarriage
ZARA Tindall suffered the heartache of two miscarriages before having her second daughter Lena last month, she revealed yesterday.
The Queen’s granddaughter, who also has a daughter Mia, four, with former rugby player Mike Tindall, said she kept the second miscarriage private because it felt so raw.
She said: ‘ You need to go through a period where you don’t talk about it because it’s too raw. But, as with everything, time’s a great healer.’
The first miscarriage occurred after it was announced in November 2016 that she was pregnant with her second child.
Zara, 37, was then forced to reveal to the world, on Christmas Eve, that she had lost the baby. Yesterday she said the fact that ‘ everyone knows’ had been ‘ the hardest part’.
She said: ‘In our case, it was something that was really rare, it was nature going “this one’s not right”, which your body does a lot, I think.’
Zara, who was around four months pregnant at the time of the first miscarriage, said she had had to go through labour because the pregnancy ‘was so far along’, adding: ‘You have to for your body, to get your body back.’
Yesterday she told how, the second time it happened, it was ‘really early on’ and so the pregnancy never reached the stage where it was announced to the public.
Zara dealt with her grief in private, with husband Mike and her brother Peter Phillips both being ‘very protective’, she told the Sunday Times Magazine. It is not
‘Mia was our saving grace’
clear when exactly Zara’s second miscarriage occurred but it would have been between December 2016 and October 2017 – when she became pregnant with Lena.
The equestrian champion, who was named Sports Personality of the Year in 2006, paid tribute to her husband and brother.
She said: ‘It’s hard for the guys, it’s a different feeling of loss, isn’t it? That’s a time when your family comes to the fore, that’s when you need them.’
The royal also expressed gratitude for the flood of messages she received after the first miscarriage was made public, saying: ‘Amazingly, lots of people wrote to us and said they’d been through the same thing … it really happens a lot.’
Breaking his silence about the devastating loss last year, her husband, a former England rugby captain, said: ‘One thing you do learn is how many other people have to go through the same thing.’
But he added: ‘The saving grace for us has been Mia. However down we feel, she will come running up in our faces.’
Zara spoke out after a public appearance on Saturday at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club’s International Day.
The accomplished equestrian won the 2006 Eventing World Championships and a silver medal for Britain at the London 2012 Olympics.
Ruth Bender Atik, of the Miscarriage Association, told the Sunday Times: ‘We are getting better at talking about what is still something of a taboo subject so it can be helpful when someone in the public eye discusses their own experience. Talking about a miscarriage is a deeply personal decision and may change over time. Some women and their partners do not want to discuss what has happened, while others might find messages of sympathy and support from friends and family helpful. But it is very much an individual choice.’