The duchess told a well-wisher on a trip to Birkenhead: “End of April, early May.
“One of my friends was saying she was five weeks early, so you can never really gauge … when it’s ready.
“We’re ready. We’re so excited.”
Meghan, like the Duchess of Cambridge, will thankfully be spared the humiliating age-old royal custom of having a government minister present when she gives birth.
In 1688, James II and Mary of Modena produced a son and heir – James Francis Edward – after 15 years of marriage.
Mary of Modena was forced to deliver in front of an audience of dozens of witnesses including the Archbishop of Canterbury, ministers of state, ambassadors and key family members.
But it was still rumoured that the baby was actually a changeling who had been smuggled in a warming pan to ensure the restoration of Roman Catholicism.
According to tradition, several Privy Counsellors and Ladies in Waiting used to be in attendance in an adjoining room.
In 1894, Queen Victoria declared that for the birth of her great grandchild, the future Edward VIII, only one Cabinet minister would be needed, with only the Home Secretary attending from then on.
When Princess Elizabeth, now the Queen, was born in 1926, the Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks was summoned.
The birth of the Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra, in 1936 was the last occasion on which the Home Secretary was present.
King George VI declared that a minister was needed only for those in the direct line of succession, but by the time Prince Charles, now the Prince of Wales, was born in 1948, the practice had been abandoned.
The Queen had all four of her children at home at Buckingham Palace or Clarence House, and her midwife Helen Maude Rowe was invited to Charles’s christening.
Princess Elizabeth was also born at home – by Caesarean section in her maternal grandparents’ London house, 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair.
According to royal author Sarah Bradford, it was a “difficult birth” and “Elizabeth was a breech baby, her mother tiny and small boned”.
Meghan could choose to return the royal tradition of home births, with top royal doctors on hand supported by a medical team in case of emergencies, and the latest birthing equipment.
It would offer the duchess the privacy and comfort of her own home – with Harry and Meghan due to move to the refurbished Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor Estate ahead of the birth.