Kate Middleton and Prince William first became parents nearly seven years ago, when Prince George was born in July 2013. Since then, both Princes Charlotte and Prince Louis have joined the family, but Kate still remembers her first few experiences as a parent to George. During a podcast interview on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, hosted by author Giovanna Fletcher, Kate shared one particular anxious moment she had after George was born.
“Yeah, slightly terrifying, slightly terrifying, I’m not going to lie,” Kate said of her appearance at the Lindo Wing at St. Mary’s Hospital in London following the birth of her first child.
She went on, adding that all of the celebration surrounding George’s birth was mostly a positive thing for her and William.
“Everyone had been so supportive and both William and I were really conscious that this was something that everyone was excited about and, you know, we’re hugely grateful for the support that the public had shown us, and actually for us to be able to share that joy and appreciation with the public, I felt was really important,” she said, per People. “But equally it was coupled with a newborn baby, and inexperienced parents, and the uncertainty of what that held, so there were all sorts of mixed emotions.”
Kate is currently promoting her survey called “5 Questions,” which aims to create a discussion among parents about challenges they face in the early years of their children’s lives.
Overall, she said, her main emotion after George’s birth was joy.
“Amazing, amazing. It is extraordinary as I’ve said. How can the human body do that? It is utterly extraordinary actually,” she said. “And he was very sweet. And I was also sort of relieved that he was a happy, healthy boy.”
She added that when she and William went home with George, they had the same jitters as any new parent. The world watched as William put George’s carseat in the car for the first time, but Kate admitted that moment was actually nerve-racking.
“We were like ‘What do we do?… in a swaddle?’ ‘How’s this supposed to work?’ We’d even tried to practice with a little baby, like a little doll, at home but you know it just never works out the way you planned it so it was quite hard to do that on the world’s stage, but no, he did a very good job,” Kate said.