As Princess Lilibet celebrated her fourth birthday on June 4, Prince Harry’s vivid recollection of her dramatic birth, shared in his memoir Spare, has drawn renewed attention.

A Personal Moment at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital

Born in 2021 at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Lilibet Diana arrived a year after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped away from their royal duties in the UK. In Spare, Prince Harry described how he assisted during her delivery, wanting to be the first person their daughter saw.

“I went and stood beside the doctor. We both crouched. As if about to pray. The doctor called out: The head is crowning. Crowning, I thought. Incredible,” Harry wrote, using the word’s dual meaning to reflect both birth and royalty.

Hands-On and Heartfelt

The moment was intense. Harry described the baby’s skin as blue, expressing concern she might not be breathing properly. “Is she choking? I looked at Meg. One more push, my love! We’re so close,” he recalled.

Time seemed to freeze as the doctor guided Harry’s hands. “A scream, then a moment of pure liquid silence…There was only this intense present, and then the doctor turned to me and shouted: Now!” he wrote. With that, Harry lifted Lilibet into the world. “Gently, but firmly, as I’d seen in films, I pulled our precious daughter from that world into this.”

He vowed to protect her always.

A Birth Without the Royal Circus

Reflecting on the difference between Lilibet’s birth and that of their first child, Prince Archie, born in London in 2019, Harry noted how much calmer it felt without the usual royal protocols, public announcements, or hospital photo ops. The absence of royal pressure, he wrote, made Lilibet’s birth “slightly easier.”