Princess Beatrice Gets Candid About Her NICU Experience: “There’s So Little Control”

James Whatling / MEGA

Princess Beatrice has opened up about the emotional roller coaster she rode before giving birth to her second daughter, Athena, who arrived prematurely.

“Nothing quite prepares you for the moment you [realize] your baby is going to arrive early,” says Beatrice, 36, who says that following routine scans, she and husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 41, became aware that their “precious cargo” would need to be born before her due date.

The couple are already parents to daughter Sienna, 3, and Edoardo’s son, Wolfie, 9, from a prior relationship.

“There’s so little control. Will she arrive healthy? Will there be complications? How will you juggle the rest of family life while trying to keep a tiny human safe and well?” Beatrice says.

James Whatling / MEGA

While Beatrice, daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, knew the best doctors would be attending to her and doing everything they could, she was still overcome with uncertainty.

“I lay awake in the weeks leading up to birth … asking myself a thousand times, ‘What if this happens, or what if that happens?’” remembers Beatrice, who has a younger sister, Princess Eugenie, 35.

Despite weighing just 4 pounds, 5 ounces, Athena Elizabeth Rose was healthy.

But it took Beatrice “more than a few weeks for the tears of relief to dry and for life with our healthy baby to feel real.”

And while there’s “still no precise explanation” as to what happened, Beatrice reports that “Athena is now doing really well,” adding, “I’m extremely aware of how lucky I am.”