Jessa Duggar has opened up about something extremely personal and extremely painful.
In a nearly 19-minute YouTube video (titled “Heartbreak Over the Holidays”) posted late on Friday, the former reality star revealed she suffered a miscarriage several weeks ago, detailing the tragic journey of her latest pregnancy to friends and followers alike.
Thinking back to the moment she found out she had lost her child, Duggar explained in the footage that the ultrasound technician told her:
“’The sac looks good. The baby does not.’”
“Nothing could’ve prepared me for the weight of those words at that moment,” she said, remembering that she “immediately started crying.”
The technician stepped out of the room as she and husband Ben Seewald began “trying to process the loss [while] sitting there and holding hands and crying.”
She continued:
“We were just sitting there holding hands and crying, like, ‘what do we do from here.’
“I feel like in some ways miscarriages can be so jarring because you don’t have clear signs of something going wrong. I had minimal spotting for 24 hours, and that was it.”
Jessa and Ben are parents to sons Spurgeon, 7, and Henry, 6; and daughters Ivy, 3, and Fern, 18 months.
She never announced her fifth pregnancy, but fans started to ask questions about her status in January.
Due to risks of complications, Duggar said in the video that she decided to check in to a hospital to perform a dilation and curettage procedure in order to remove the baby from her womb.
Simply devastating.
Jessa grew very emotional on camera as she recalled the moments leading up to the procedure, stating:
“I was able to thank God in that moment for giving us this life, even if we wouldn’t be able to hold this baby in our arms.”
Still, despite such amazing perspective, the 30-year old said it was after the procedure was complete that she faced the most challenging moments of the entire process.
“Those 10 to 15 minutes before I was taken back to the room where Ben and my mom were waiting were probably some of the hardest in my life, just laying there feeling so alone,” she explained, as her voice broke on camera.
The TLC alum concluded the video by holding tightly to her faith and having hope that she will see her child someday.
“When you lose someone so dear to you, it does makes heaven that much sweeter. we talked about that with the kids.
“We can’t wait to meet this little one in heaven one day.”
She also said that she plans to “take a break” on social media and focus on recovering.
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