How Sophie longed to be a mother - but nearly died twice: New biography reveals Duchess's traumatic pregnancy experiences, and the VERY unlikely TV show the Queen watched with her children

Daily Mail​

12-07-2025

For once, Prince Edward was at ease in front of the cameras. He was in jovial mood as he held hands with Sophie Rhys-Jones at St James's Palace in January 1999, announcing their engagement.
Sophie's smile dazzled almost as much as the fabulous diamond engagement ring she was showing off, which was believed to have cost Edward £105,000.
'If it catches the sun, you'll be blinded!' he warned photographers, adding: 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend, so I'm told.'
The news of a royal wedding was a national pick-me-up after a series of royal scandals. Who would design the wedding dress? Who would be on the guest list?
The couple were keen to make the wedding as fun and informal as possible, so they were opting for an early evening ceremony – meaning no need for hats for the ladies and no military dress and chest full of medals for the men.
With all eyes on the arrangements for the ceremony at St George's Chapel, Windsor
Castle, no one cottoned on to Sophie's discreet visits to a Harley Street clinic run by Zita West, the 'baby whisperer'.
Finding the right moment to marry amid years of family upheaval – Charles and Diana's separation and divorce, the break-up of Andrew and Sarah's marriage, and Diana's death – meant that Sophie was 34 by the time she walked up the aisle.
She was keen to start her family and painfully aware of her biological clock. Ms West believed general well-being enhanced a woman's prospects of getting pregnant.
She had advised Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Ulrika Jonsson and Diana.
The 'natural therapies' included Pilates, yoga, general birth counselling and acupuncture.
In late 2001, to Sophie's delight, she found herself expecting a baby. By December, six weeks into the pregnancy, she and Edward were preparing to tell friends and family the good news.
It was a month before Sophie's 37th birthday. But then, on a dull Wednesday evening, she started to suffer serious stomach pains.
By the early hours of the morning she was doubled up in agony and, in a frantic state, woke her husband.
Edward acted decisively. He called Dr Richard Thompson, head of the Queen's medical staff, who suspected Sophie might be having an ectopic pregnancy – where the fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb, usually in a fallopian tube.
Sometimes this can be corrected naturally, but not in cases where the woman is in sudden and absolute pain.
Dr Thompson called the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance. The red helicopter landed on the lawn of the couple's new marital home Bagshot Park, south of Windsor, and Sophie was whisked off for immediate surgery at King Edward VII's Hospital, 500 yards from Zita's clinic in Marylebone.
Sophie was in theatre for three hours and required five pints of blood.
The full paramedic team in the helicopter meant no room for Edward, so he drove to London, stopping off at Buckingham Palace to tell the Queen and Prince Philip what was happening.
Dramatic reports that Sophie's condition was life-threatening were not over the top: a bland statement from Buckingham Palace saying she was 'comfortable' was medically true but in reality, Sophie was distraught and said to be very tearful.
Outside the hospital Edward bravely, yet haltingly, addressed the media: 'It's obviously a very traumatic time and my wife has... it's quite the most painful thing anyone can undergo. It's a pretty traumatic experience.'
While Sophie recovered, a statement was issued on her behalf: 'I am obviously very sad but it was just not meant to be. But there will be other chances. The nurses have been unbelievably fantastic.'
Ironically, this sad episode started the process of turning Sophie into a formidable campaigner. When she got engaged, nearly three years earlier, she had no intention of becoming a working royal.
'I see my role as a supporting one to Edward rather than rushing off and forging my own path and taking on various charities,' she said.
'The Queen and the rest of the Royal Family do an exceptional job in a public role anyway and I don't see a massive need to go out there and do the same thing.'
Now, however, Sophie began to realise that she could do more than give token support to the charities and services that had helped her.
Top of that list was the Air Ambulance Service, whose prompt and decisive action had probably saved her life.
With Edward, she attended a fundraising dinner where she could personally thank the pilot Andy Busby and the lead paramedic Tim Goddard.
Her support for air ambulances around the country has not wavered over the years and she was very encouraging to Prince William when he became a pilot for the East Anglian Air Ambulance Service in 2015.
Slowly, she also returned to the public stage. The sad early months of 2002 were forgotten – or at least put to one side – as celebrations began that June for the Queen's Golden Jubilee.
The highlight for many of the 12,000 people watching from Buckingham Palace Gardens was Queen guitarist Brian May blasting out the national anthem from the roof of the Palace.
Sophie was one of 20 members of the Royal Family who gathered on the Palace balcony to watch a fly-past and acknowledge thousands of flag-wavers.
Privately, she had not lost her desire to start a family and under the supervision of Sir Marcus Setchell, the royal gynaecologist, she began IVF treatment.
Her ectopic pregnancy had reduced the chances of a natural conception, so IVF seemed a sensible option for Sophie.
Charles had two children, so did Anne and Andrew, so she could be forgiven for thinking she and Edward needed to get cracking.
She told friends that children had helped both Diana and Fergie cope with the inevitable sense of isolation that being a royal wife might bring – especially as she had by now given up her job, which meant her sociable office-going days were over.
The first two IVF treatments were not successful. Could it be third time lucky?
It was. In August 2003, following speculation in the Press that summer when Sophie was pictured in a bathing suit bearing an unmistakable bump, the Palace announced the good news.
Taking no chances, she had already given up horse-riding and official duties for the first few months of pregnancy.
Indeed, her caution appeared to have paid off, as she remained in good health. In November, she was pictured well and considerably pregnant in a beige trouser suit when she officially opened the City of London headquarters of Childline, the counselling charity for children founded by Esther Rantzen, who was with her to cut the ribbon.
But two days later, lightning struck again when Edward was on a trip to Mauritius. Sophie was at home at Bagshot Park watching Saturday night TV when just after 8pm she started to suffer agonising stomach pains.
At least she knew it wasn't another ectopic pregnancy. She only had six weeks to go before the baby was due.
Sophie with a baby as she visits The Royal Agricultural Society Show Ground for their 'Education Day' in the Isle of Wight on May 24, 2022
Sir Marcus realised how serious this might be and arranged rapidly for Sophie to be taken by ambulance the six miles to Frimley Park Hospital, just off the M3.
It was all sirens blaring as an armed police motorcyclist accompanied the ambulance as it hurtled down the motorway.
On arrival, Sophie was rushed into theatre for an emergency caesarean operation.
She was showing signs of acute placental abruption, the medical term for when the placenta has separated from the uterus.
The effect on the mother-to-be was a substantial loss of blood.
Sophie's condition was so bad that it put both her and her baby's lives at risk.
Lady Louise, her daughter, was born on November 8 weighing just 4lb 9oz and was hastily taken to a specialist baby unit at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, as doctors fought to save Sophie's life.
She was slipping in and out of consciousness and required a transfusion of nine pints of blood.
Edward took the first flight out of Mauritius, where he had been representing the Queen on an official visit to mark Remembrance Day.
He arrived back in London the following evening after 12 hours in the air, not yet aware of how close his wife had been to dying. He was shaken to discover his baby daughter was in a specialist unit and not with her mother.
After dashing to Sophie's bedside, he spoke to the Press outside the hospital: 'First of all, I am rather shocked and delighted at the news, obviously very sorry that I was not able to be part of it.
'I have seen Sophie, she is doing well – she has also had a bit of a fraught time of it.' That was an understatement.
He then sped off to see his daughter, a first meeting that left him 'thrilled to bits'. He was excused from the royal schedule for a week as he shuttled the 35 miles between mother and baby.
After a few days, doctors were happy for baby Louise to travel back to Frimley Park Hospital to be reunited with Sophie, whose recovery was progressing slowly.
Edward was overjoyed that they were all together at last.
The Queen was sufficiently concerned that she broke with protocol and made a hospital visit to see how Sophie and her latest grandchild were getting along.
Sophie was kept in hospital for 16 days before she was considered well enough to travel the short distance back to Bagshot Park to continue her recuperation. She posed with Edward, who was holding their daughter carefully in his arms as they left.
Sophie was not a changed person when she returned home but, in coming to terms with what happened, she became as protective of her family's privacy as she was of her baby.
Exhausted, she needed time to recover and bond with Louise, so she barely left her baby's side in the coming weeks. But there was further concerning news three months later.
Premature babies may sometimes be at greater risk of eye conditions and Louise was diagnosed with esotropia, a form of strabismus in which one eye, her left, was turning inwards.
Sophie was reluctant for her baby to face treatment so soon and it was a year or two before Louise had corrective surgery.
Two operations would eventually correct the eye – the first, when Louise was 18 months old, was only partially successful but a second, when she was ten, dramatically improved things.
One of the key motivations for Sophie over the years has been using personal experience to guide her interest as a member of the Royal Family.
She quietly lends her patronage to causes that matter to her and her family, both at home and abroad.
Her experience with Lady Louise has made her a committed global ambassador for the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), a role she takes seriously, not wanting to be a token figurehead, having also visited programmes across the world for sight-saving charities such as Orbis.
The memory of the birth traumas never left Sophie.
In 2014, she went back to open a new neonatal ward at Frimley Park Hospital and broke down in tears as she met and thanked the midwives who had helped to save her life.
She explained: 'For the first ten years after Louise was born, I found it very hard to go to 'prem' wards. It would bring the whole thing back, but I've learned to cope.'
Astonishingly, just as Louise was about to start primary school, Sophie found she was pregnant again, this time without any medical help.
Miraculously, everything went smoothly and James was born by planned Caesarean at Frimley Park.
His big sister Louise had no idea that their grandmother was the Queen until someone told her on her first day of pre-school; for Sophie and Edward's children, the Queen would always be lovely Grandmama, who would settle down to watch Mr Tumble on CBeebies with them.
As Sophie observed: 'I guess not everyone's grandparents live in a castle, but where you are going is not the important part, or who they are. When they are with the Queen, she is their grandmother.'
And perhaps it was a two-way street. Sophie, Edward and their two children, living close to Windsor, may have been the young family the Queen had never been able to enjoy properly when her own children were small because of the demands of being the sovereign.
Louise was at St George's School, perfectly placed to pop round for tea with her grandmother.
The Queen taught her and her brother to ride and, as an adult, Louise has achieved success in Prince Philip's favourite sport of carriage driving.
The Queen was intensely sympathetic to Sophie's struggles to have children and as the years passed, they became close.
Sophie was no great horsewoman but she made the effort to embrace the pursuits the Queen and Prince Philip enjoyed.
She learned to shoot pheasant and grouse and to fish for salmon in the Highlands of Scotland.
She could pop round to Windsor Castle in ten minutes to watch TV with her mother-in-law.
They would sometimes sit in front of historical documentaries together, or better still, a good old-fashioned British war film – the sort of movie where Richard Todd or John Mills saved the day.
At other times, they could be found poring over the priceless ancient documents preserved in the Royal Archive at Windsor.
The Queen found Sophie a comforting and calm presence.
Sophie and Edward tried to give their children as normal an upbringing as possible, within the obvious boundaries of living in a 100-room mansion. Whenever she could, Sophie did the school run.
She also made sure the children experienced some of the childhood pursuits she had so enjoyed, including sleepovers and children's parties and taking the dogs, Beth and Bluebell, for a walk.
But while the children were her number one priority, her royal workload was slowly but steadily increasing. Sophie was growing in confidence – and ready to step in when needed most.