Joy-Anna Duggar is getting candid about the decision to expand her family further amid her pregnancy with baby No. 4.
“Even in the pregnancy, I am trying to enjoy it, even though it seems like it’s been fast,” Joy-Anna, 28, told sister Jinger Duggar on the Wednesday, September 9, episode of their “Call Your Sister” podcast. “It’s been harder, but I don’t know how many more times I’m going to do this.”
Joy-Anna and her husband, Austin Forsyth, announced earlier this month that they are expecting again. The Counting On alum and Austin, 32, are already the parents of sons Gideon, 8, and Gunner, 3, as well as daughter Evelyn, 5. (Joy-Anna previously suffered a miscarriage in 2019, naming her late daughter Annabell.)
Speaking on the siblings’ podcast, Joy-Anna confessed that she initially felt “pressure” to have a large family like the one she grew up in. (Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are famously parents of 19.)
“I felt that in our first pregnancy, and Austin and I have had to have real conversations about [it] because I feel like it’s really important,” she acknowledged. “Austin, [during] this pregnancy, for the first time was like, ‘Do you know what? We might be done after this one. I don’t know, how do you feel?’”
As a result, Joy-Anna began discussing the possibilities that baby No. 4 will be her last.
“It’s crazy to me that we might already be there, like, we’re done with this phase of life, so that part of it is bittersweet,” the former TLC star added. “Right now, I don’t feel like I would be done with this one. Four or five have always been … in my mind.”
Like her younger sister, Jinger, 32, “assumed” she’d have “as many kids as possible” before becoming a mom.
“When [Jeremy Vuolo and I] were engaged, we were talking about how many kids we wanted, and we were also watching through Bill Gothard’s videos and pausing it,” Jinger said, referring to the controversial leader of her family’s IBLP religion. “Initially, that was one of the bigger things I was thinking through. I was never the one that wanted to babysit everyone’s kids. … I loved being around kids, but I wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to have 50 kids of my own.’ But I thought, ‘That’s what everybody’s gonna do.’”
Upon discussing the matter with Jeremy, 39, Jinger ultimately had a change of heart.
“Children are a blessing from the Lord, but [that] doesn’t mean you have to have as many as possible, then that was actually a different perspective for me,” she said. “[That] gave me more joy going into having my kids. I was like, ‘Thank you, Lord, for these kids; they are a blessing.’ I don’t want to do anything out of convenience, but I also want to be present and involved in my kids’ lives in a deep way where each kid feels taken care of.”
Jinger and Jeremy share daughters Evangeline, 8, and Felicity, 5, and son Finn, 17 months.
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