Joe and Kendra: Looking Forward to Side Hugs

[VelociRapture]

4 hours ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I would like to think it is so each kid can her turn being the "center of attention" for once in her life.  With the exception of Jill jumping on Derick like a starving kid on a cake to be #1, even Bin waited until after Jill's wedding so Jessa could have some attention, but again Jill jumped in with the baby and, well was just Jill as always.   

A few things:

1. Derick proposed to Jill. Not the other way around. If you're going to say that someone jumped all over someone else to be "first" then it should be Derick. He could have waited to propose if going in order was really so important and Jill wouldn't have had any choice but to deal.

2. Ben most likely didn't propose earlier due to his age. If they had followed the typical "three month rule" they would have been engaged in December (a month after Derick likely asked Jill to court) and married by March (around the time Jill's courtship was announced and Derick proposed.) They had more than enough time to get married first if it was really a competition or important to them.

3. Can we please just stop with the claims that Jill announced her first pregnancy to steal Jessa's attention? She was about eight weeks pregnant when Benessa got engaged. The announcement came out right after - photos had to be taken and interviews done ahead of time... meaning, that it's entirely possible that Ben knew about the announcement and decided to propose anyways. 

I honestly think that Jill would have been blamed for stealing attention from Jessa unless she had waited to announce after their wedding - and that just wasn't going to happen considering her due date was in March and she was visibly pregnant at their wedding.

4. Lastly, it's really important to remember that there are 19 kids in this family. It's to be expected that big news is going to overlap at some point. Jill's pregnancy announcement and Jessa's engagement overlap is an excellent example, as is Jinger's wedding falling on Spurgeon's first birthday.

[buggers]

4 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

 

3. Can we please just stop with the claims that Jill announced her first pregnancy to steal Jessa's attention? She was about eight weeks pregnant when Benessa got engaged. The announcement came out right after - photos had to be taken and interviews done ahead of time... meaning, that it's entirely possible that Ben knew about the announcement and decided to propose anyways.

Lol. Yes! Everyone here hates Jilly so much they attribute too much vitriol towards her pregnancy announcement. I'm not a Jill fan, but I don't think she planned her pregnancy just to spite Jessa. I think she announced when she did because she was starting to show and it was going to be out there anyways. I assume the family plans these things out and Jessa and Ben knew that was coming. They probably have a media consultant from TLC that helps them plan announcements.  

[Carm_88]

5 minutes ago, buggers said:

 I think she announced when she did because she was starting to show and it was going to be out there anyways. 

I don't think Jill announced to spite Jessa. However, the pee stick was barely dried when she announced, so it wasn't due to showing.  That's what led to the never ending Izzy pregnancy. 

[VelociRapture]

1 minute ago, Carm_88 said:

I don't think Jill announced to spite Jessa. However, the pee stick was barely dried when she announced, so it wasn't due to showing.  That's what led to the never ending Izzy pregnancy. 

She and Derick said in the interview that they knew about the heightened risk of miscarriage before the 12 week mark, but announced anyways because every life counts. Or something similar. Kinda made me roll my eyes slightly, but they had every right to announce when they felt comfortable sharing. 

I'm pretty sure they announced Baby Dilly the Second around eight weeks too. There hasn't been endless speculation this time strictly because they haven't been sharing the weekly chalkboard updates and because they purposely avoided giving a specific due date. Can't really blame her - she was completely right to keep two due dates in mind (the actual due date and a later one), but so many people missed that and just assumed she screwed up the date due to incompetence.

[singsingsing]

I never thought she screwed up the due date. Jill of all people would know her due date, I'm sure. She was probably meticulously tracking her cycle and knew exactly when she ovulated. She just went late. It happens. She screwed up by not seeking appropriate medical care, not by miscalculating her due date.

I think the meme that these women are a bunch of jealous, petty bitches who take delight in stealing each other's thunder and sabotaging each other's big announcements is utterly ridiculous, but other people have said it better than I can, and I feel like I've argued about this too many times before. So yeah, just everything @VelociRapture said. I'm going to bed!

[nst]

56 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

I don't think Jill announced to spite Jessa. However, the pee stick was barely dried when she announced, so it wasn't due to showing.  That's what led to the never ending Izzy pregnancy. 

great times.  I think Jill is a loud one despite anything 

[Hokey Pokey]

My great Grandparent's oldest child was born the year they married, in another country (war bride). My Grandma told stories about how difficult it was for them to have a baby on the boat all the way home. I always assumed there was probably some pre-marital hanky panky for there to be time to get married, get pregnant and have a baby several months old all before getting home, but I would never say anything outloud to my Grandma about her parents (although she is a pretty cool Granny, she'd probably be fine about it). That was untill I had to dig out the family records for a project once, turns out he was born almost exactly 10 months after they were married, I guess they just had Duggar fertility. Had to send a mental apology to my great Grandparents.

Not that there's anything wrong with hanky pankying 

[MadeItOut]

Genealogy - the acceptable face of talking to dead people. You've got to love it, haven't you.

You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've had to mentally apologise to my Nana while researching her criminal ancestor. She would not have approved at all.

[ivyalba]

I remember my grandmother telling me that there was quite an uproar when she and her twin sister were born. I am not 100% certain on the timing, but I think it was 7-8 months after my great grandmother was married. It is likely they were conceived after the wedding but because they were twins, they came early and everyone was up in arms (and supposedly my great grandmother was very embarrassed) because they thought my great grandparents had pre-marital relations. Now, perhaps they did. I don't think they were particularly religious, but I also think they may not have. My grandmother also told me that her parents didn't know they were having twins until they were born as it was the early 1900s. 

[Dandruff]

Same thing happened to my grandmother in the early 1930's.  She thought she was going to have a big baby, gave birth to a small baby, then heard someone say "There's another one".

[2manyKidzzz]

12 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

Same thing happened to my grandmother in the early 1930's.  She thought she was going to have a big baby, gave birth to a small baby, then heard someone say "There's another one".

Talk about a huge surprise. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

19 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

1. Derick proposed to Jill. Not the other way around. If you're going to say that someone jumped all over someone else to be "first" then it should be Derick. He could have waited to propose if going in order was really so important and Jill wouldn't have had any choice but to deal.

I meant Jill jumped into the courtship with Derrick, yes he proposed, but they had to have talked about it, and I do think she hopped on the 1st man she could grab after Jess started courting.  

[VelociRapture]

3 hours ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I meant Jill jumped into the courtship with Derrick, yes he proposed, but they had to have talked about it, and I do think she hopped on the 1st man she could grab after Jess started courting.  

But, again, Jill didn't get much of a say in when their courtship would have started. She could have begged, pleaded, and demanded to have it start as soon as possible - but ultimately, in their culture, it was Derick's decision when he wanted to ask her to court. Same with Ben and Jessa - Ben got to decide when to ask her to court and when to propose.

Yeah, Benessa may have met first and started courting first. That doesn't mean Jill "hopped on the first man she could grab" just to beat Jessa to the altar though. I did some reading out of curiosity. Here's a brief breakdown of their relationships -

Benessa - Met sometime before May 2013 (he was close to being 18 and she was already 20.) Courtship announced in early September. Engaged mid-August 2014 and married November 1, 2014. 

The Dills - Met Christmas 2011, but didn't really interact. Derick becomes Boob's prayer partner shortly after when he started his missionary work in Nepal. Boob tells them bits about each other over the next year. Jill and Derick speak briefly in March 2013. Derick gets Jill's phone number in mid-August and they start talking. Courtship in late November, engaged late March 2014, and married late June. 

So yes, the Dills had a faster moving relationship than Benessa did - they were also older though and Boob had likely known Derick longer than he knew Ben (because Boob is obviously the only one who matters. ) 

The most likely explanation is simply that Jill and Jessa are close in age and just happened to meet guys they were interested in around the same time.

[Coy Koi]

My grandparents' first child was born when they were 16 and 17. To this day, they insist they were married before my grandma was pregnant, but even in the 1950s, that really didn't happen where they were from, so I don't believe it. They were also my biggest critics when I got pregnant at 17. I guess if I'd had the decency to get pregnant by a white guy and then drop out of school and hastily marry him even though I didn't want to and then lie about it my whole life, that would have been more acceptable (rather than graduating high school and college at the top of my class and resisting the pressure to get married when I knew it would be a mistake). My only regret is that it took me so long to stop talking to them...

My mom also was pregnant before my parents married (but they were in their mid-20s). My dad spilled the beans when my sister and I were teenagers (long after they were divorced). My mom was in such a state of despair over it, and later blamed my dad telling us that for me getting pregnant out of wedlock. Which is ridiculous, but she had some really old-fashioned views. Now, my sisters and I (and my now-teenage daughter, who is the only one of us who isn't white or straight, and is extremely close with my mom) have kinda inadvertently forced her to part with many of those views. Not enough of them, mind you, but a lot of them. But oh, how less-horrific our teenage years would have been for all of us, INCLUDING my mom, if she would have just calmed the hell down a few years earlier.

I have no patience for parents hurting their kids in the name of "what would the neighbors think?!" I honestly am not still angry at my mom over this or anything, but when she was trying to make me marry my daughter's father, she did tell me that people would think I was a slut otherwise. That's a really, really horrible thing to say to your child under ANY circumstances. But something that I'm sure has been said to countless young women.

[CoveredInBees]

My BIL was born a month after the wedding.......... no hiding that one  but to be fair (even though it was still the 60's) both my inlaws had a history (second marriage).

I remember one of our neighbours daughters getting pregnant out of wedlock in the 90's (she was in her 20's) and my parents saying to me that if I found myself in that situation they would support me no matter what. Lovely sentiment but I was a little WTF at the fact they thought it was still some sort of stigma by then. 

Oh, and genealogy-wise, a great aunt of mine was in service (maid) and has to return home as she was 'in the family way' (early 1900's), the daughter was raised by her grandparents and didn't know her true parentage until she was an adult. All very 'Upstairs, Downstairs'.  

[Carm_88]

29 minutes ago, CoveredInBees said:

My BIL was born a month after the wedding.......... no hiding that one  but to be fair (even though it was still the 60's) both my inlaws had a history (second marriage).

My aunt was born 2 months after my grandparents wedding. No hiding that one either.  

[ak1188]

I have no patience for parents hurting their kids in the name of "what would the neighbors think?!"

I could not agree more, and I am so impressed by your strength in standing up to your parents and grandparents when you were so young and in a tough position. Your daughter is lucky to have a mom who can model that kind of strength.

[Coy Koi]

1 minute ago, ak1188 said:

I could not agree more, and I am so impressed by your strength in standing up to your parents and grandparents when you were so young and in a tough position. Your daughter is lucky to have a mom who can model that kind of strength.

Thank you so much for your kind words! Honestly, for a little while I thought I would have to get married even though I really, really didn't want to and was dreading it. My mom tried to hype me up for it ("we'll have a bridal shower! won't that be fun?!") but after seeing how impossible that was, she let it go.

The first thing my mom said when I told her I was pregnant was, "Now you'll have a mixed-race baby that no one will want to adopt." (Not remotely true, as several people from church approached her about it, even though I never considered adoption for my baby.) I kinda hate to even say that as it makes my mom sound pretty bad but she isn't, she's wonderful. As a natural conformist born to kind of mean parents, she's had a lot to overcome though. She's really an exceptionally kind-hearted person.

[rainbowbabycakes]

I was born a month after my parent's got married....

My ex and I were dating at 16, all of my friends thought I was pregnant when we got engaged pretty quickly.... in all reality, we hadn't even slept together at that point, lol. We married at just shy of 20 (I'm 3 weeks older than he is, lol), and my son was born a couple of days before our 5th anniversary

[Purrl]

I just saw this photo and must say that Kendra, poor thing, is already looking like a middle-aged frump. Or maybe I should say that she's already dressing like a middle-aged frump.

 

[Georgiana]

Back to Jill for a second, there was a picture that came out before she announced where she looked pregnant and people did notice.

For Jill, she was SO petite before, that her face filling out and chest swelling was rather noticeable. She really got a more "womanly" body very suddenly, in a way that was very obvious. 

I rolled my eyes at their announcement too, but she was noticeably pregnant very early. 

[VelociRapture]

@Coy KoiEveryone acts in ways that make them feel badly later on. Yeah, your mom acted pretty badly when you found out you were pregnant... but she loves you and your daughter. And she realizes now that she was wrong to act the way she did.

No one is perfect. All we can do is learn from past mistakes and do our best to be better people moving forward. It sounds like your mom has tried to do that and that's a good thing.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 hours ago, Purrl said:

I just saw this photo and must say that Kendra, poor thing, is already looking like a middle-aged frump. Or maybe I should say that she's already dressing like a middle-aged frump.

It's the skirt. An oversized flannel would look fine with skinny jeans and those shoes. But the skirt makes her look older than 18.

[Carm_88]

Kendra and Joe are looking mighty cozy. Are they secretly engaged? 

 

[justmy2cents]

31 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

Kendra and Joe are looking mighty cozy. Are they secretly engaged? 

 

It's those side hugs she was really looking forward to.