Jessa Duggar revealed she suffered a miscarriage with husband Ben Seewald. The reality star took to her YouTube channel on Friday, February 24 to let her fans know of the loss of their fifth child in a clip called “Heartbreak Over the Holidays.” Detailing the painful moment they were told of the miscarriage, Jessa admitted she and Ben were at the hospital “trying to process the loss [while] sitting there and holding hands and crying.”
Going into further detail, Jessa said the couple went to the hospital to make sure everything was ok after she was suffering unusual morning sickness pain. Jessa explained how the ultrasound technician then did some tests and told the couple, “The sac looks good. The baby does not.’” She added, “Nothing could’ve prepared me for the weight of those words at that moment.”
“Right as they were wheeling me back [to the operating room], I just wanted to ask, like, ‘Just, can I please have one more ultrasound? Please, somebody check, make sure,’” she continued in the video. “I was having all these fears that maybe they got something wrong. … You know It’s irrational, but you just feel scared.” After the procedure, Jessa said she had a “hollow feeling inside” because “the life that was in you is no longer there and you never did get to see your baby and say those goodbyes.”
The pregnancy loss isn’t the first for the couple, as Jessa revealed they suffered another before the birth of their daughter Fern. “After the heartbreaking loss of a baby last year, we’re overjoyed to share that another little Seewald is on the way,” Jessa and Ben said in a joint statement to TLC in 2021. “The pregnancy is going smoothly, and both baby and Jessa are doing well.” The couple, who also share Ivy, 3, Henry, 5, and Spurgeon, 6, welcomed Fern on July 18 of that year.
As fans know, Jessa recently had to defend herself after her sister Jill Duggar welcomed a new baby. The former 19 Kids & Counting star fired back at trolls for spreading rumors that she did not show up for Jill’s baby shower. The drama went down after the sisters’ cousin Amy Duggar shared photos from the event to Instagram without any snaps of Jessa, causing fans to speculate that she was a no-show. Jessa quickly replied, telling the haters to stop spreading the hate.
“Please let’s not assume there’s a negative motive behind everything we do and do not do,” Jessa began in the comment section. “These rumors make me angry, and I’m here to put a stop to it. The narrative these kinds of comments put forward is a false one. Simply not true.”
The baby shower drama comes after Jill publicly reacted to the news of her and Jessa’s brother Josh Duggar being sentenced to 12 years in prison on May 25 after he was convicted of receiving and possessing child pornography. A day after Josh was given the 151-months sentence and ordered to pay fines and assessments totaling $50,100, Jill and her husband Derick Dillard took to their Dillard Family blog to reveal they were “thankful” that “justice” was being served.
Jill, who claimed she was a victim of Josh’s abuse in 2013, went on to say her brother had yet to be held accountable in a means necessary to change his “dangerous pattern of behavior” until now. She and Derick suggested a decade in prison may be Josh’s only chance at rehabilitation. “Hopefully, Josh can actually begin to get treatment and begin to work toward a lifestyle where he is less likely to reoffend,” they added.
Josh was found guilty in December of two charges of “receiving and possessing material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” Law enforcement detected the activity during an undercover investigation that ended in Josh being arrested by Homeland Security in April 2021. Following the arrest, TLC cancelled the Duggar family reality show Counting On.