💔 “She’ll Be in Our Hearts Forever”: Joy-Anna Duggar Forsyth Reflects on the Loss of Her Daughter Annabelle
In a moving and vulnerable appearance on her sister Jinger Vuolo’s podcast, The Jinger & Jeremy Podcast, Joy-Anna Duggar Forsyth spoke openly about the devastating stillbirth of her daughter, Annabelle Elise, at 20 weeks gestation in July 2025.
Though the former 19 Kids and Counting star and her husband Austin Forsyth publicly shared the tragic news shortly after it happened, this recent conversation marked the first time Joy-Anna has opened up in such detail about the emotional aftermath, grief, and the slow road to healing that followed.
🕊 A Pregnancy Filled with Hope… Until It Wasn’t
Joy-Anna and Austin were joyfully expecting their second child. After welcoming their son Gideon in 2017, the couple looked forward to expanding their growing family. But at what was meant to be a joyful gender reveal and 20-week ultrasound appointment, everything changed.
“I had a gut feeling something might not be right,” Joy-Anna recalled. “But I kept telling myself I didn’t want to overreact.”
The ultrasound confirmed her worst fears: there was no heartbeat. A black-and-white hospital photo posted days later showed the couple holding their baby girl tenderly, their faces a portrait of grief and strength.
“So this is your baby’s heart,” she remembered the doctor saying. “I don’t hear a heartbeat or see any movement.”
💔 The Pain of Saying Hello and Goodbye
The most traumatic part, Joy-Anna shared, was still having to go through labor and delivery despite knowing her baby was already gone.
“It was extremely hard. I was 20 weeks pregnant and had to go through the entire delivery process,” she said. “I was grateful my mom was there with me—she had been through it before.”
In the delivery room, the family met Annabelle Elise, held her, and grieved the life they would never get to see unfold.
“We only had her for 20 weeks,” Joy-Anna wrote in a heartbreaking Instagram post. “Life is fragile and precious. She will be in our hearts forever.”
🕯 “In the Arms of Jesus”: A Mother’s Grieving Heart
The grief that followed was complex and isolating. Joy-Anna described the months after the loss as “a fog,” explaining that both her body and emotions were in shock.
“I felt like I was in a cloud for six months,” she told her sisters. “Your body’s going through something it doesn’t understand. The healing timeline looks different for everyone.”
Faith played a central role in her emotional recovery. When people called her “strong,” Joy-Anna said she often corrected them.
“Everyone kept saying, ‘You’re so strong,’ but inside I was falling apart. It wasn’t me—it was God carrying me.”
She found peace in the idea of her daughter being held in heaven.
“Visualizing God holding Annabelle gave me comfort. That’s why we put ‘In the arms of Jesus’ on her tombstone.”
On what would have been Annabelle’s sixth birthday, July 1st, 2025, Joy-Anna posted a tender black-and-white photo of her daughter’s tiny feet with the caption:
“Happy heavenly sixth birthday, Annabelle Elise Forsyth ~ July 1, 2019.”
🧠 The Silent Struggles of Motherhood
In the years since, Joy-Anna has become a mother to Evelyn (4) and Gunner (2), and while her family has grown, so has her understanding of mental health and emotional resilience.
After Gunnar’s birth in 2023, she experienced intense postpartum depression, which hit her around 2.5 months postpartum.
“Everything crumbled,” she shared. “I kept thinking, ‘I should have this together. I’m a seasoned mom.’ But I hit rock bottom.”
Joy-Anna admitted she even questioned whether she wanted to go on.
“I was just fighting, fighting, fighting for months and months to feel better,” she said.
With time, therapy, healthier habits, and physical activity, Joy-Anna said she began to climb out of the darkness.
