Several members of the Duggar family have shared their heartbreaking experiences with pregnancy loss over the years.
In February 2023, Jessa Duggar revealed that she suffered a miscarriage while pregnant with her and husband Ben Seewald’s fifth child. In the emotional YouTube video, titled “Heartbreak Over the Holidays,” the former Counting On star recalled breaking the news of baby No. 5 to her children Spurgeon, Henry, Ivy and Fern in November 2022 before revealing, “I feel like I’ve been more sick this pregnancy than I have with any of mine.”
She went on to share that an ultrasound technician had told her, “The sac looks good. The baby does not,” before tearfully describing how she felt when the news broke that she miscarried. “Nothing could’ve prepared me for the weight of those words at that moment,” she shared, adding, that she “immediately started crying.”
The experience is one three of her sisters have also been through, as Jill Duggar and her husband, Derick Dillard, suffered a miscarriage in October 2021, a few months before welcoming their son Frederick in July 2022. The couple also shares sons Israel and Samuel.
Jinger Duggar — who shares daughters Felicity and Evangeline with husband Jeremy Vuolo — revealed in May 2020 that she had previously had a pregnancy loss before announcing she and Vuolo were expecting their second child. Similarly, Joy-Anna Duggar Forsyth shared in July 2019 that she lost her and husband Austin Forsyth’s second child 20 weeks into her pregnancy. Already parents of son Gideon and daughter Evelyn, the couple revealed in October 2022 that they are pregnant with their third kid.
The girls’ mother, Michelle Duggar, has dealt with pregnancy loss of her own in the past. Back in 2011, she announced that she miscarried her and husband Jim Bob Duggar’s 20th child. “We discovered during a routine 19-week ultrasound that our 20th child, who was due in April 2012, passed away recently,” Jim Bob wrote in a letter to Today.com at the time. “We would like to thank everyone for their prayers, emails and outpouring of love … As our whole family is grieving, we also know that God promises to work all things for good in our lives.”
The sibling’s sister-in-law Lauren Duggar (née Swanson) also had a miscarriage in October 2018 and admitted in an exclusive Counting On clip shared by Us Weekly that she and her husband, Josiah Duggar, struggled to conceive following the loss.
“We had been trying to quite a while after the miscarriage, and when we found out we expecting, literally we were shocked,” she stated. “I couldn’t believe it and just cried. We were scared, but life is very precious and we are so thankful for this. We may be a little nervous at times, but we’re just going to be grateful.” The two have since welcomed their daughter Bella in November 2019.
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Scroll below to read the Duggar sisters’ candid quotes about their miscarriages: