Meghan Markle and Kylie Kelce’s Postpartum Stories Are Brutally Honest — But Don’t Panic

When you’re expecting a baby — especially if it happens to be your first — you spend a lot of time going down rabbit holes online. Googling weird symptoms (“mustard on cake craving normal?”), researching unique baby names and, of course, lapping up any stories you can find about celebrities at a similar life stage.

That’s why many moms-to-be eagerly devoured the stories Meghan Markle and Kylie Kelce shared this week — only to find themselves freaking out about what might lie ahead. Sure, it’s refreshing when celebrities open up and offer a more unfiltered view of their lives, but it can also be pretty confronting.

Meghan, 43, opened up about her postpartum experience in the first episode of her new “Confessions of a Female Founder” podcast released on Tuesday, April 8 —chatting with Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd about the fact that both women had suffered from postpartum preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition in new moms.

“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,” said the mom of Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3. “In the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people, and in the quiet, you’re still just trying to show up mostly for your children. But those things are huge medical scares.” Herd chimed in that the condition was “life or death, truly.” (While Meghan didn’t specify which of her pregnancies her frightening experience came after, it’s believed that the condition came during her postpartum period with Archie.)

Meanwhile, Kylie, 33, spoke about her pregnancy experiences and postpartum mental health on the Thursday, April 3 episode of her “Not Gonna Lie” podcast, recorded just two days after giving birth to her daughter Finnley, her fourth with Jason Kelce. (The couple also share Wyatt, 5, Elliotte, 4 and Bennett, 2.)

While Kylie emphasized how grateful she is to have kids, she admitted that she didn’t enjoy pregnancy, as well as struggling with the emotional ups and downs of new motherhood. “You can have these thoughts and feelings, you can have these anxious moments, you can have this rage, experience this range of emotion, or even a step further, an actual mood disorder postpartum,” she said. “But you can still love your child and be happy that your child is here and be happy to be a mother and to be grateful for the experience.”

It’s powerful when these high-profile women use their own platforms to be super-candid about life as new moms (“that dual-experience”, as Kelce called it) — but it can also be seriously anxiety-inducing for women terrified about the huge changes their bodies, minds and whole lives are about to go through (as many as 70% of women experience anxiety and stress during pregnancy!).

Of course, there are even some big stars talking about motherhood who haven’t experienced it themselves —like Chappell Roan who incited a million reactionary TikToks and online think pieces when she said on the March 26 episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that all of her friends with kids are miserable. “‘I actually don’t know anyone who is happy and has children at this age,” said the 27-year-old singer. “I have literally not met anyone who is happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.”

Sure, new moms are tired — and some old moms are pretty tired too, thanks for asking — but it’s important to remember when consuming these dramatic sound bites that everyday motherhood doesn’t often make headlines. People don’t talk much about the ordinary stuff, because they’re too busy living it, and it’s often not very interesting to outsiders (especially if you’re one of Roan’s old high school friends and feeling like your life might be a little boring and basic compared to your insanely talented pop star pal).

Just like no one writes a Yelp review to say their mid-range chain hotel stay was “perfectly fine”, few women go online to say their pregnancy was boring, their birth was painful but routine, and now they’re just… getting on with it. What shows up on social media and in the news is the extreme — because that’s what gets attention.

Right now, motherhood has too many different publicists all telling a different story because ultimately, every experience is unique. There are highs, lows, health scares, first smiles, pain, pleasure, good nights, bad nights, nights you’ve blocked out entirely and more different shades of bodily fluid than you ever imagined existed. But, almost all of the time, moms are glad to be moms.

As Kylie Kelce put it, there’s one thing moms from all walks of life have in common, and that’s guilt; guilt that their own, perfectly unique version of motherhood isn’t the right one and that they’re not enjoying it enough.

“It’s so important for women to hear that specifically because there is still that immense amount of guilt associated with the fact that you would even think, ‘What would happen if,’ or that you aren’t finding joy in everyday life, or it feels redundant that you get up every day and you do breakfast, and you do this, and you do that, and it’s the same routine every [day],” she said. “And so I think that the idea of encouraging women to speak out when they’re having those moments, the liberating feeling will be worth it.”

So sure, listen to this new breed of emotionally open celebrities and appreciate them for using their huge platforms to raise awareness of rare health issues and the challenges of pregnancy, birth and motherhood, instead of sugar-coating everything. Someone as famous as Duchess Meghan talking about a thankfully rare condition like postpartum preeclampsia could genuinely save lives.

And sure, watch the influencers dismantling all the celebrities’ hard work with their perfect, pastel-toned nurseries, suspiciously stain-free outfits and easy-breezy take on motherhood. They can’t help it; they mostly learned it from the celebrities who came before.

Even Meghan’s guest, Herd, remarked on the podcast that she herself had been intimidated by unrealistic images of motherhood — by Meghan! “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 beautiful outfit in front of the entire world?’,” she said. “I could barely face a doorbell delivery for takeout food in a robe. I was like, ‘Please don’t look at me! Leave it down the street!’”

Just remember to talk to the real moms in your network, too. Chances are, most of them don’t have any extreme, scary medical stories and will probably say “Hmm, pregnancy was kinda boring and I felt sick to start with and then mostly just a little tired, and the birth? Yeah, it hurt but I’m OK now. And motherhood, it’s—” before getting interrupted by a baby yanking on their nursing bra.

Because that’s the version of motherhood you’ll usually see if you take out the Airpods and log out of social media: it’s not dramatic or devastating or perfectly filtered, just lived — with eye bags, caffeine and a lot of love.