Jessa Duggar Seewald is officially a mom of five! The former Counting On star and her husband Ben Seewald announced on Saturday that they welcomed their “rainbow baby,” a 9-pound, 14-ounce, newborn boy. The little one joins older siblings Spurgeon, Henry, Ivy, and Fern, whom the couple welcomed in July 2021 after having suffered a miscarriage in 2020.
The couple accompanied the news with a photo of Jessa holding the newborn. They also shared their birth experience, which included a 21-hour-labor, in a YouTube video. Among the special moments in the video is the moment Duggar holds the child for the first time as she and her husband are visibly overcome with emotion.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“It was the sweetest moment when they raised the baby up and put him on me, and just holding him there,” Duggar said in the video. “I think there were just so many emotions in that moment, so many things you’re processing.”
She added, “It’s been a year since we lost our last baby and just a flood of emotions and so such a special moment getting to welcome our little baby into this world.”
The little one’s arrival comes after Jessa and Ben first announced in September that they were expecting. The couple shared the exciting news in a September YouTube video titled “A Baby on the Way & Romantic Getaway,” which began by showing a positive pregnancy test sitting on her counter. They captioned the video “after a heartbreaking loss last year, we are so grateful God has blessed us with a rainbow baby.” The happy announcement came after the couple revealed they suffered a miscarriage in 2020, later revealing that they experienced another pregnancy loss during the holiday season of 2022.
“I had really allowed myself to become so hopeful because the spotting had stopped. At that moment, I was just in complete shock. I didn’t even have words. I just immediately started crying. Ben was there, and he put his arms around me,” Jessa shared in a YouTube video in February. After her dilation and curettage procedure, Jessa spoke candidly about her experience, sharing, “Just waking up after the procedure was over and just having this hollow feeling inside because you know that the life that was in you is no longer there. You never did get to see your baby or say those goodbyes or anything.”
Throughout her pregnancy journey, Jessa continued to reflect on that loss. In October, the TLC alum shared an emotional note to her unborn “rainbow baby.” Sharing a photo of her recent ultrasound, Jessa wrote, “Every heartbeat heard, every ultrasound seen, every appointment with a good report… the worries fade a little bit more. God has blessed us beyond measure, and YOU ARE SO, SO LOVED, my little one.” The 19 Kids and Counting alum added the hashtag “rainbow baby” with a rainbow emoji in reference to the miscarriage she suffered last year.