During a recent visit to her parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s home, Jill Dillard found there was no shortage of many of the things she’d grown up around: kids, meals, schoolwork, toys – and the ever-ready stash of her mother’s home-pregnancy tests.
A few weeks into her marriage to husband Derick, Jill, 23, had already taken a few of her own (just in case!), and each had come back negative, but at her sisters’ urging she gave one of Mom’s a try.
The result was something a Michelle Duggar pregnancy test often reveals: positive!
“It was surreal,” says Derick, 25, who tried to soothe his wife as she screamed with glee.
“I told her, ‘Babe, you don’t want to hyperventilate and have the baby stressed-out!'”
But for Jill, a trained midwife who has also had ample practice caring for her many younger siblings, the news that she was going to be a parent herself took a while to sink in.
“We were both so excited,” she says, “and so completely shocked!”
