Jill Dillard, nee Duggar, said that her fourth child was stillborn.
The 32-year-old former reality star announced the news on her blog and Instagram, sharing photos of herself and her husband, Derick, cradling what appears to be a crochet bear.
“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the stillbirth of our beautiful baby girl, Isla Marie Dillard,” she wrote in the post caption. “Jill was 4 months pregnant (due in August) when we found out that our baby died in utero. From the moment we found out we were pregnant, we couldn’t wait to meet our baby. Isla was much loved from the start, and her 3 big brothers were so excited to introduce her to their world.”
She concluded, “We appreciate your prayers as we continue to grieve and heal from the loss of our little Isla Marie.”
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The comments were flooded with support for the former “Counting On” star, including a message from her sister, Jinger Vuolo. “Love you so much, sis. Continuing to uphold you all in prayer. Sweet little Isla will be missed,” she wrote in her reply.
The Duggar family rose to fame as part of the TLC reality series “19 Kids and Counting.” The show followed the lives of a family with 19 children whose names all began with the letter J. The parents were Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, devout Christians who homeschooled their children.
The series was canceled in 2015 amid controversy stemming from the couple’s eldest son, Josh Duggar, admitting to molesting several of his sisters. A spinoff show starring some of the older daughters in the family, including Jill, debuted in 2015. “Counting On” was canceled in 2021 after Josh was arrested for child pornography possession.
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Dillard wrote a book about her experiences, saying being on the show negatively impacted her marriage. “It caused a lot of frustration in our marriage,” the former reality star told People in September 2023, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “Especially early on, where he would feel a certain way about filming something. I’d be like, ‘I hear you, I feel you, I also don’t want to do whatever it is they’re asking us to do either. But we have to.’”
“It definitely got between us,” she said.
“I saw how deeply we were in an argument one time, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is not okay,’” Dillard continued. “When I saw how it was affecting our marriage, I think that was another wake-up call for me. It was like, okay, we need to either fight this battle together, or it’s going to rip us apart. So yeah, we had to join forces at that point.”