NEED TO KNOW
- Joy-Anna Duggar is opening up about a difficult time in her life
- While appearing on her sister’s podcast, Joy-Anna shared about her daughter Annabell’s stillbirth in 2019
- The mom of three shared that her grieving process was hard, noting that she was “in a fog” for about six months
Joy-Anna Duggar is reflecting on a difficult time.
While appearing on the Jinger & Jeremy podcast, Joy-Anna spoke with her siblings Jinger Duggar and Jessa Duggar, and candidly opened up about her 2019 miscarriage. As she began discussing her story, Joy-Anna got emotional and started to tear up.
“I guess looking back, I did have kind of a gut feeling of something may not be right,” said Joy-Anna. “But also I’m like, ‘I don’t want to over exaggerate.’ I don’t want to read into things…I just remember feeling so numb leaving the ultrasound.”
Joy-Anna then went down a “really hard road” with husband Austin Forsyth and was forced to deliver her baby daughter Annabell early at 20 weeks. “That was extremely hard, having to go through the whole delivery process.”
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“I’m so thankful that I had [my mom] there that had been through it before,” she continued. “And I had a really good support team, but even with all of that, it was extremely difficult.”
A few days after her daughter was born, Joy-Anna and Austin honored their late daughter with a funeral ceremony and a burial, but Joy-Anna noted that dealing with the physical and emotional stress of Annabell’s death took longer.
“You know, you recover physically, you stop bleeding,” she said. “You have to kind of move on, and [someone] told me, they’re like, ‘I went through a loss and it took me a long time. There’s no set timeline.'”
“When I’ve talked to other people, I’ve shared that with them,” Joy-Anna explained. “Like, ‘Hey, it took me six months.’ I felt like I was in a cloud for six months. I felt like I was in a fog. You know, it’s postpartum, your body’s going through kind of a shock. And then that timeline is going to be different for people.”
She went on to address other parents who faced loss directly, saying that they have to give themselves grace because it takes time to process something like that.
“Don’t put yourself on this, ‘I have to bounce back,’ ” Joy-Anna said. “There’s gonna be days where you can have joy, but the next day may be really hard, and you’re hit with that grief again. There’s no set timeline.”
Earlier this month, Joy-Anna celebrated Annabell’s sixth “heavenly” birthday with an emotional Instagram post shared on Instagram. The mom wished her daughter a “happy heavenly” birthday alongside a series of photos taken during her pregnancy and in the hospital.
“happy heavenly 6th birthday Annabell Elise Forsyth ✨👼🏼 ~ July 1, 2019 ~,” wrote Duggar, adding, “*some photos may be disturbing to some.”
One black-and-white photo captured Annabell’s feet, while another shot showed Duggar and her husband holding their daughter in the hospital, along with a mirror selfie Joy-Anna snapped while she was pregnant. In the post, the Counting On star confirmed that Annabell weighed 4.8 oz and was 7 inches long.
Alongside Annabell, Joy-Anna and Austin are also parents to son Gideon, whom they welcomed in February 2018, daughter Evelyn, whom they welcomed in August 2020, and son Gunner, who turned 2 in May.
