Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard can no longer keep their very personal and very precious secret:
The couple is expecting baby number-three!
In a blog post on their official website Sunday night, the former Counting On cast member and her husband revealed the blessed news, opening a message titled “Exciting News” as follows:
We’ve been keeping a little secret!
The couple went on to elaborate:
Ever since we were devastated last fall by the miscarriage of our sweet baby, River Bliss, we have prayed that, if it was God’s will, he would bless us with another baby.
We are excited to announce that God has answered our prayers and we are expecting our rainbow baby due July 2022!
We are so thankful for a healthy baby and pregnancy so far and we look forward to finding out the gender soon!
Duggar and Dillard are already parents to a pair of sons: six-year old Israel and four-year old Samuel.
The spouses, who married in 2014, opened up in in October about how Jill had suffered a pregnancy loss.
“We recently found out we were expecting our third baby,” the parents captioned an Instagram video at the time.
“We were thrilled! However, a few days later we started miscarrying. We love and miss you River Bliss!”
The former reality star and the accountant named their unborn child very intentionally, explaining their motivation in this same post.
“Even though it was too early to tell the baby’s gender, we picked a name that we feel encompasses our baby’s significance and the life we will always remember” they wrote in a blog post back then, adding:
“Here in Arkansas, rivers are often a serene, beautiful escape in nature.
“We also like how the River talked about in the Bible (Rev. 22:1-5) represents God’s life-giving presence.”
The late child’s middle moniker was also selected for a unique and special special reason.
“We chose Bliss for a middle name because our baby is living in perfect bliss with the Lord and was such a gift that brought immense joy and happiness to us even though only with us here on earth for a short time,” Jill and Derick’s emotional statement concluded.
“Our baby doesn’t get to live here with us on earth, but is forever with the source of the river of life, in the presence of the Lord!”
Duggar and Dillard were introduced to television viewers on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, which chronicled the extremely Duggar family… and which was canceled after Josh Duggar confessed to molesting little girls when he was a teenager.
Jill then went on to help anchor a spinoff titled Counting On… which was canceled after Josh Duggar was arrested (and later convicted) on two charges of child sex abuse.
Since leaving this latter series, Jilll and Derick have distanced themselves from her the former’s controversial family.
They’ve openly rebelled against Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s strict and controlling rules, regulations and protocols for their sons and daughters.
“We were ready to leave and felt strongly about leaving,” Jill told Us Weekly in February 2021.
“There are definitely some issues there. We definitely feel like we’re in a healthy place now for our family and have control over our lives. …
Certain people are more supportive than others. I think it ebbs and flows with a family of that size.
“Every family has drama and so when you’ve got that many more people giving opinions or whatever, it can get crazy.”
In May of last year (before the miscarriage and also, of course, before this latest pregnancy), Jill talked about how her parents would pressure her and her sisters to get pregnant.
“Growing up, it was ingrained in me that if you don’t have as many kids as you’re able to, that there’s something wrong with that,” Jill told People Magazine.
“But there was a shift in me.
It was a shift “where I felt like it wasn’t wrong if you decide as a couple that it’s best for you to wait.”
After Jill gave birth in 2015 via C-section, her doctor recommended she wait at least 18 months before getting pregnant again.
“Children are a blessing, but that doesn’t mean that at all costs you should have as many kids as possible,” she concluded last spring.
We’re proud of Jill for arriving at this conclusion.
And we can’t wait to meet her impending bundle of joy!
“Children are a blessing, but that doesn’t mean that at all costs you should have as many kids as possible