The Duchess of Sussex’s new podcast has debuted! The first episode of Confessions of a Female Founder is here! Remember Meghan’s Archetypes and her love of alliteration? The first episode of COFF is “The Evolution of the Entrepreneur.” A conversation with Bumble’s founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, one of Meghan’s close friends. Herd apparently gave Meghan a lot of advice as Meghan was starting As Ever. I’ve only listened to part of the interview as I’m writing this, but I’d like to say, Meghan already sounds more confident and conversational here than she did at the start of Archetypes. You can listen to COFF on Spotify or Apple (I’m including the Spotify embed at the end of the post). Anyway, the big news is that Meghan reveals that she had postpartum preeclampsia.
Meghan on postpartum preeclampsia: “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 shared. Meghan didn’t clarify whether the condition occurred after the birth of her son, Prince Archie, 5, or her daughter, Princess Lilibet, 3. Wolfe Herd, meanwhile, is a mother to two sons. “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 agreed, saying: “I mean life or death, truly.”
Wolfe Herd on watching Meghan debuted Archie: “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?’ I could barely face a doorbell delivery for takeout food in a robe,” she added, prompting a laugh from Meghan.
Motherhood in a pandemic: “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.”
Building a business with young children at home: “What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter while I’m building [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, okay, where’s the Cheerios? Well done.’ And then you’re championing your team 10 minutes later about something that is really high value for the world. In your own world, that’s super high value. And in [Lili’s] world, that’s super high value.”
My guess is that Meghan’s postpartum preeclampsia was after giving birth to Lili, just because I think the British reporters would have screamed about “Meghan’s postpartum complications” in 2019. The reason people didn’t know about it is because Meghan gave birth to Lili in California. Poor Meg and poor Whitney. Whitney is great in this interview, really confessional and interesting. She and Meghan have been through some really similar things and they have a lot of comparable experiences. Anyway, I’m really enjoying this first pod from Meghan’s Lemonada contract. This format is so much better and less scattered than Archetypes!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Lemonada.
