Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth are expecting … but the time frame in which they’re expecting continues to spark great speculation.
While it’s plausible – albeit unlikely – for her to have conceived since (or on) her wedding day, a lot of fans aren’t buying that scenario.
Austin and Joy stunned Duggar Nation three months after their May 26 wedding by announcing that she’s expecting their first child.
The sheer size of Joy-Anna Duggar’s baby bump – not to mention preexisting rumors of broken courtship rules – raised eyebrows.
Could they have engaged in premarital sex and rushed to the altar, shotgun wedding style, as a means of covering their tracks?
Since the big reveal, the couple obviously hasn’t addressed rumors that the future Baby Forsyth was conceived out of wedlock.
This week, however, Joy-Anna Duggar and her husband posted an update on her pregnancy on their joint Instagram account.
(No, Joy doesn’t have her own account, a minor but still intriguing point of contention worthy of its own article sometime soon.)
The 19-year-old Duggar and her new husband posted the above image of her bump while segueing into their anti-abortion views.
“Can’t wait to meet our baby! I got to feel it kick for the first time a few days ago,” she wrote as her caption, adding controversially:
“Soooooo amazing!!! It’s already about the size of a bell pepper and weighs around half a pound!!! #childrenareagiftfromGod #westandforlife.”
Pro-life discussion aside, the real controversy has once again become the bump photo, which some fans are certain is an older image.
One passed off subtly but intentionally, they say.
“This is an old picture,” one Duggar fan stated.
“It was the first picture they used to announce her pregnancy. Unless she is having twins, she is way too big for her dates to match.”
Some also felt that on top of the (allegedly) old photo, Joy’s quote about the baby being bell-pepper-sized and kicking was more subterfuge.
This would put the unborn child around 18 weeks, according to experts, when it begins to flex its arms and legs and increase movement.
The 18-week range would be consistent with wedding night conception (18 weeks and four days ago) and a late February due date.
Obviously, whether she conceived earlier than their wedding night wouldn’t be as big a deal with many couples as it is in their families.
There, it is a huge deal.
It’s unclear if they put as much thought into this as we’re theorizing, but if it was their way of subtly trying to quash rumors, well played.
If you watch Counting On Online, you know recent episodes have focused on Joy-Anna’s wedding planning and pre-wedding activities.
In one installment, the soon-to-be-spouses were perusing a property that was to become their first home together after the ceremony.
In turn, some fans felt the baggy clothing Joy-Anna wore for the occasion was purposely chosen with the goal of hiding a baby bump.
Not the kind of thing we can prove, and definitely not the kind of thing the Duggars would ever address directly, but fans had a field day.
That small bump, after all, gave way to Joy-Anna’s huge baby bump – and the controversy that came with it – just a couple of weeks later
Are we looking at Joy-Anna’s trickery exposed?
Maybe, maybe not, but we’ll tell you this:
No bell-pepper style hints are going to quell the rumors or cease the chatter … especially not if she keeps trying to re-use old pics.
Come on, Joy. Armchair Duggar investigators are pretty sophisticated in this day and age with their Zapruder-film level analysis.