Ever since the world learned that Joy-Anna Duggar is pregnant with her first child, speculation that the 20-year-old is lying about her date of conception has run rampant.
Joy says she got pregnant just days after marrying Austin Forsyth.
Fans believe she’s lying with the full support of her family.
The Duggars strictly forbid just about all forms of physical contact prior to marriage, so the revelation that one of Jim Bob and Michelle’s daughters got pregnant out of wedlock would be hugely damaging to the family’s wholesome image.
Joy and Austin have admitted to breaking “courtship rules” in the months leading up to their marriage, but the Duggars dating guidelines are so strict that that could mean they simply held hands for too long.
When Joy announced her pregnancy with an Instagram photo, many fans voiced their opinion that she appeared to be further along than the 3-month point that she claimed.
The fact that she spent much of the past month avoiding the spotlight only seemed to lend further credence to claims that she’s not being entirely truthful about the timeline of her pregnancy.
Joy was absent from the Duggars’ Thanksgiving photo, and she didn’t appear in any of the pics the family posted for Christmas.
Yesterday, she posted the above photo to Instagram, along with a caption reading, “Christmas date night!”
It was the first pic she posted in which her midsection is visible since November 11.
That’s a major break from Duggar tradition, as Joy’s older sisters thoroughly documented every step of their pregnancies on social media.
Naturally, fans were quick to put Joy’s latest photo under a microscope in order to determine if she’s any further along than she claims.
(Joy claims she got pregnant in May, and she’s stated that she’s expected to give birth in February.)
Radar Online had the photo examined by Dr. Sean Henry, a gynecologist and women’s health blogger, who, it should be noted, has not treated Joy personally.
“She looks like 32 weeks or so,” Dr. Henry tells the site.
That’s roughly two weeks further along than Joy claims she is.
Can Dr. Henry make such an exact determination simply by looking at a single photo?
It’s a question that’s currently being hotly debated amongst Duggar fans on social media.
And it’s one that likely won’t be resolved until Joy gives birth–and perhaps not even then.
Watch Counting On online for more from reality TV’s most controversial family.
