Meghan, the FIRST photo... only hours old in the arms of her mother

The new mother's expression will be familiar to every young woman who has just given birth.

It registers an emotional maelstrom mingling unbridled joy with utter exhaustion, relief with sheer awe.

By contrast, perched on her lap just hours after her arrival in the world, her tiny baby girl looks a picture of serenity.

Indeed, she appears so composed as the camera flashes, that it is almost as if she could sense her extraordinary destiny.

Captured by a family member in an austere Los Angeles hospital room, this starkly evocative portrait is the first-ever photograph of the future Duchess of Sussex.

It was taken so soon after Meghan's birth, at 4.46am, on August 4, 1981, that she still wears identity tags around her wrist and ankle, and barely fills out her sky-blue smock, as she nestles next to her 24-year-old mother, Doria Markle.

The remarkable image features among more than 30 photos in a previously unseen family album shown exclusively to the Daily Mail by Meghan's uncle, Joseph Johnson.

Charting the Duchess's happy, though sometimes turbulent, childhood, from her earliest moments through to her teens, the pictures are of particular significance to her family.

For while we have seen many shots of the young Meghan with her father, Thomas, and his side of her family, this collection opens a fresh window on the times she shared with her maternal relatives, particularly her mother Doria and grandmother Jeanette Johnson; the women who most influenced her.





MailOnline