Friends Defend Size of Joy-Anna (Duggar) Forsyth’s Baby Bump

Joy-Anna (Duggar) Forsyth has gotten a lot of heat over the size of her baby bump amid rumors of a shotgun wedding to husband Austin Forsyth, but friends of the family are stepping up to defend the first-time mom.

The 20-year-old Duggar daughter has faced a lot of skepticism when it comes to her first pregnancy, with many fans saying her bump looks too big for her to have gotten pregnant after her May wedding.

But according to the family friends who moderate the Duggar Family Blog, Joy-Anna looks very similar to her sisters Jill (Duggar) Dillard and Jessa (Duggar) Seewald at the same point in their pregnancies.

They not-so-subtly addressed the issue in a post about Austin and Joy-Anna while visiting his grandfather for Veterans Day.

“Joy-Anna (Duggar) Forsyth is approximately 23 weeks pregnant with her first child. She and Austin spent Veterans Day with Austin’s grandfather, an Army veteran,” they wrote. “Joy’s baby bump is comparable to the size of Jill’s when she was at the same stage in her pregnancy with Israel.”

They then added a photo of Jessa at about the same time in her pregnancy.

Rumors that Joy-Anna might have gotten pregnant out of wedlock began to circulate when she and Austin pushed their wedding date up from October 2017 to May. The change wasn’t addressed on their TLC show, but many believe it was because the then-19-year-old was already pregnant. Since then, any sign of her bump has been analyzed, especially on her Veterans Day post.

“Can’t wait for that ‘premature’ baby to be born 7-8 months after the wedding!” one person quipped.

“Well I do personally believe she’s further along because usually the kids have been pretty open [about] when their babies are due and how many,” another reasoned. “Sadly I think there’s such a stigma on the family of no personal relations before marriage rule that they have to hide if she is.”