Jessa Duggar is expecting her 5th child with Ben Seewald: ‘Rainbow baby’
Jessa and Ben Seewald are expecting their fifth child!
Jessa Seewald, formerly Jessa Duggar, shared the exciting news on her Instagram story Sept. 9. She linked out to a new YouTube video on her story, writing, “After a heartbreaking loss last year, we’re so thankful God has blessed us with a rainbow baby.”
In the video, which captured the couple’s first solo getaway in four years back in April, the “19 Kids and Counting” and “Counting On” star shared a similar sentiment in a voiceover while she showed viewers a clip of her positive pregnancy test.
“After a heartbreaking loss of our baby last year, just this past week, we found out some wonderful news that our rainbow baby is on the way and we could not be more excited,” she said.
The couple been married since Nov. 1, 2014 and are the proud parents of four children: Spurgeon, 7, Henry, 6, Ivy, 4, and Fern, 2.
In February 2023, Jessa Seewald revealed that she experienced a miscarriage while she was pregnant with the couple’s fifth child. She shared the heartbreaking news in a video published on her YouTube channel and gave her viewers insight into her pregnancy journey.
Jessa Seewald explained that near the end of her first trimester of the pregnancy in December 2022, she was experiencing nausea, fatigue and food aversions. In addition to those symptoms, she said she had “the tiniest amount” of vaginal bleeding.
She ultimately got an ultrasound, explaining in the video, “As soon as she started taking a look at the baby, I could tell there was some concern in her voice. She said, ‘Well, the sac looks good; the baby does not.”
Jessa Seewald said she was “in complete shock” and “immediately started crying.”
“I feel like in some ways, missed miscarriages can be so much more jarring because you don’t have clear signs of something going wrong,” she explained. “I had minimal spotting for like 24 hours, and that was it.”
After consulting with her doctor, due to her history of hemorrhaging, she checked into the hospital to undergo a dilation and curettage — also known as a D&C — which is a procedure that removes tissue from inside the uterus in order to diagnose and treat uterine conditions, or after an abortion or miscarriage according to the Mayo Clinic.
In the comment section of the video, Duggar clarified that her baby’s heart stopped beating three weeks prior to her D&C, adding, “Btw, this was not my first D&C— it was my second. My first was 2 weeks postpartum Ivy’s birth for retained placenta.”
Jessa Seewald also had a miscarriage in between the birth of her two youngest children, Ivy and Fern.
She shared the news when she announced the pregnancy of her fourth child in February 2021, posting a sonogram on Instagram alongside the caption, “We’re looking forward to summertime, and here’s our #1 reason! Thank you, God, for this precious gift! #RainbowBaby.”
“After the heartbreaking loss of a baby last year, we’re overjoyed to share that another little Seewald is on the way,” the couple said in a statement shared by TLC. “The pregnancy is going smoothly, and both baby and Jessa are doing well. We are so grateful to God for the precious gift of a new life!”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
