How feminist Meghan and "broody" Harry have been talking about starting a family for years

THE DUKE and Duchess of Sussex made no secret of their desire to start a family - even addressing the possibility of having children in their engagement interview.

Asked if they had plans to try for a baby last October, Harry replied: “Not currently, no,” garnering a laugh from his then wife to be. “Of course, one step at a time and hopefully we’ll start a family in the near future,” he added.

Around the time she met the prince in the spring of 2016, a then Miss Markle gave a telling interview to Best Health Canada when she said becoming a mother was “on her bucket list”, adding: "I can't wait to start a family, but in due time."

A few months later the 36-year-old royal opened up to Lifestyle magazine, declaring: “I also dream to have a family. It's all about balance, and I have so much happiness in my career and am fortunate to travel the world and see so many amazing things — it will also be nice to be anchored to something grounded and in the same place. Raising a family will be a wonderful part of that."

Meghan has been a focal feminist since the age of 11, when she spoke out against a sexist washing liquid commercial, saying: “I don’t think it’s right for kids to grow up thinking these things, that just mom does everything. It’s always mom does this, and mom does that … I said, ‘Wait a minute, how could somebody say that?’” She followed it up with a punchy speech at the UN in 2015, calling for women’s empowerment.

During an interview with Good Morning Britain in June, Meghan’s father Thomas Markle also let the cat out of the bag: “She's wanted children for a long time,” he revealed. “When she met Harry and she spoke about how much she loved him, there's got to be a child in the making there somewhere soon." It came after her former agent Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne has declared in an interview: “Meghan said to me, ‘I would absolutely love to have children, and I can't wait to be a mother’.”

Much was made of Meghan lingering at a baby products stand during a visit to Northern Ireland in April and commenting: "I'm sure at some point we'll need the whole thing.” She was also photographed crouching down talking to a little girl at the Coworth Polo Club in Ascot in July-  around the time the couple are thought to have conceived.

Harry, 34, has been unashamedly broody for years, declaring in an interview in 2010, when he was just 25: “I’m obsessed with children.”

He also spoke of his desire to settle down during a tour of New Zealand in 2015.

Then aged 30, he said he was waiting for the right moment – and the right woman – to come along. “Of course, I would love to have kids right now,” he said. “But there’s a process that one has to go through.” Having had to play gooseberry to William and Kate between his break up from Cressida Bonas in 2014 and meeting Meghan two years later, Harry watched with increasing admiration - and a small degree of envy - as his brother settled into married life as a father of three.

The Sussexes very much wanted their children to be close in age to the Cambridges as they grow up as neighbours at Kensington Palace. Now their first baby is due in Spring, meaning he or she will be just a year younger than Prince Louis.