Joy-Anna Duggar is sharing more details about her daughter Annabell Elise Forsyth four years after she was born still at 20 weeks of gestation.
In a moving YouTube video, Joy-Anna sat down with her husband, Austin Forsyth, to share more about the days leading up to finding out their daughter had died in utero, back in 2019, and their journey through grief since.
On the Forsyths' YouTube channel, Joy-Anna and Austin open up about Annabell’s story.
Starting the video with a short tease of their conversation to come, Joy-Anna spoke about the ultrasound when they found out their daughter’s heart was no longer beating.
“At that moment I just knew, like, I knew that there was something wrong,” she said.
It’s been four years since Annabell died, and Joy-Anna and Austin are ready to provide more details.
“Yesterday was actually the four-year anniversary of us finding out that we lost our daughter Annabell,” Joy-Anna said in the video. “We were 20 weeks along and um and July 1st will be her birthday.”
She has more of Annabell’s story to share, and Joy-Anna feels now is the right time.
“It’s kind of crazy. I cannot believe it’s been four years since losing her. There’s a lot that I feel like we’ve talked about it some and then there’s a lot of details that we’ve never talked about just because we haven’t really ever had the opportunity — we haven’t felt like it was the right opportunity,” she explained.
'So we're going to take a minute to talk about Annabell,' she continued.
Joy-Anna explained that she’s ready to tell the whole story. “Dealing with losing so late in a pregnancy and how we grieved and how we found out and all the things.”
She said that at the time, she had been feeling less movement from her baby, but she wasn’t sure if she should be worried.
“I had just started feeling her kick at like 18 weeks I think, and I was, I remember telling you at like probably 19 weeks, I was like I haven’t felt her kick,” she told Austin.
“We didn’t know her gender by then though,” she continued. “I was like I haven’t felt her kick. I’m worried and in my in my heart I felt like I knew there was … I just knew there was something wrong or that was going to happen.”
She didn’t think too much of it because she had an appointment scheduled the following week.
During that appointment, Joy-Anna had an ultrasound scheduled, and it was clear early into that appointment that her worries were warranted.
“The ultrasound tech puts the Doppler on my belly and like right away you could see the whole demeanor of her face just changed,” Joy-Anna explained.
“I just, I’m I remember, like, my heart just sunk, and I was like ‘This can’t be happening. Like this is this is supposed to be the happiest time of our lives, finding out gender,’” she recalled.
Joy-Anna and Austin were told that the baby's heartbeat couldn't be found, but the expecting mom was still hopeful.
“I was like, in my mind, I was like, ‘OK, check again. Maybe your machine’s messed up,’ and she’s like ‘We can’t find a heartbeat,’” Joy-Anna shared.
“She went ahead and took pictures of the baby and took measurements to see kind of when she thought the baby passed and if there were any like visible signs in the ultrasound that could have showed what happened,” she recalled.
The ultrasound didn’t show much, other than 'baby looked perfect.'
In the days that followed, Joy-Anna and Austin saw a second doctor to confirm that what they were told was true — and it unfortunately was. Their unborn daughter had died, and coming to terms with what happened was challenging for Joy-Anna.
“I remember I was blaming myself because I remember I had rode a four-wheeler or a jet ski or something like not long before,” she continued. “I just felt like I was blaming myself. I was like ‘Well what if what if I caused this?’ Like ‘What if it was me? Like ‘If I wouldn’t have rode that would the baby been fine?’ Like kind of blaming myself for a lot of it.”
The doctor assured her that it wasn’t anything she did or didn’t do that caused the baby to die.
They scheduled an induction for July 1.
The doctor “scheduled us to come in and be induced on July 1st so that would have been like a couple days later,” she continued. “We had a couple days and I remember during that time it just I felt it felt so weird because I was still pregnant, I still had the bump, like everything on the outside looked normal.”
Joy-Anna said she wanted to be able to spend time with her daughter after she was born, so they opted to be induced.
“On July 1st we had the baby mid-afternoon I think around lunch time,” she shared. “The delivery went great. I progressed really well. It was something I didn’t think about like with later-term pregnancies you have to go through the whole delivery process so your body has to dilate,” Joy-Anna recalled.
“It was a really hard time because you’re going through all of this and your body thinks that you’re having a baby but, um, at the end of the day, you’re gonna go home and your arms are going to be empty and you’re not gonna have that baby to hold.”
In the video, Joy-Anna and Austin talked about the days and weeks that followed and processing grief with their families. It’s a hard story to listen to and very vulnerable for the grieving parents to share with the world.
