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Jessa Duggar is opening up about the “scary” aspects of pregnancy after suffering two miscarriages.
Jessa, 32, appeared on the Wednesday, July 9, episode of her sister Jinger Duggar’s podcast “Jinger & Jeremy” alongside their sister Joy-Anna Duggar to discuss pregnancy, baby loss and grief.
“I think it is scary,” Jessa said when Jinger, 31, asked about navigating fear and anxiety after miscarriage. “I think it’s hard to allow yourself, early on, to feel excited when you see that positive pregnancy test because you feel like you’re bracing yourself. You’re like, ‘This may go how it went last time.’”
Jessa, who’s been married to Ben Seewald since 2014, has five children — Spurgeon, 9, Henry, 8, Ivy, 6, Fern, 3, and George, 18 months. She suffered a pregnancy loss in 2020 and again in 2022, but is currently expecting her sixth baby.
“I’ve had friends who have had back-to-back losses and it is just devastation upon devastation,” Jessa continued. “I feel like my losses were separated. They weren’t back to back, but I definitely felt that, until I was past the marker of where I lost my last baby, it was very hard for me to feel like, really emotionally invested, or to, like, get attached because I was, like, ‘Any second, this could be gone,’ and you’re terrified. I mean, just, like, basically every time you go to the bathroom, you’re like, ‘Is there blood? Like, am I? Am I losing this baby?’ And so that’s, like, the hard side.”
Jessa went on to say that there are positives to having experienced a miscarriage, mainly that it makes her feel “a lot more grateful” for the children she does have.
“I took a lot less for granted,” she said, admitting that although she complains about the usual aches and pains associated with pregnancy, she is more appreciative. “You know, when those pregnancy symptoms of, like, nausea or whatever, like, went past into the second trimester with one of my babies, I was like, ‘This is going on really long.’ But then I thought, ‘But it stopped short with the other baby that I lost. And like, I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ Like, I’m thankful even for, like, hard aspects of pregnancy because your baby’s still there and you’re still pregnant. I feel like it just caused me to be so much more grateful and to cherish life even more.”
Joy-Anna, 27, also shared her perspective following the loss of her stillborn daughter, Annabell. Joy-Anna and her husband, Austin Forsyth, welcomed son Gideon in 2018 and, one year later, discovered during her 20-week scan that their second baby had died. The couple went on to welcome daughter Evelyn in 2020 and son Gunner in 2023.
“I would have this, like, battle in my mind, almost, of, like, ‘I’m so scared. I’m not going to get excited.’ But then I would go to the other side of, like, ‘Well, I don’t need to be controlled by that.’ I need to be, like, God’s given us life, and it’s not in my control, so I’m going to trust him. And then the next day I’d be like, ‘But what if this happens?’ And so it was constant,” Joy-Anna said of navigating pregnancy after loss.
“I did have more peace of mind once I passed the 20-week marker, but even past that, I’m like, ‘Well, I heard of this story.’ And Austin would remind me, ‘Now being pregnant and having fear and anxiety is not good for the baby. That goes to the baby.’ So he would remind me, and I’m like, ‘Ok, I’m not gonna be anxious.’ But thenI would have to ask God to help me over and over because it wasn’t something that I just got over and was past, like, I think it was just a battle the whole time.”
Joy-Anna tries to remember that, without the loss of Annabell, she wouldn’t have the children she is blessed with today.
“We got pregnant with Evelyn about six months after [losing Annabell],” Joy-Anna said on Wednesday. “And we wouldn’t have been able to have Annabell and Evelyn. So for me, looking back … obviously, it hurt to go through that loss, but we wouldn’t have Evy today if we hadn’t have lost Annabell.”
Jinger is also a mom to daughters Felicity, born in 2018, and Evangeline, born in November 2020. She and husband Jeremy Vuolo welcomed their third baby, son Finnegan, in March 2025.
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