Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, parents of 19 children, say they are hoping to have more children. In an upcoming clip from their TLC reality series "19 Kids & Counting," they visit a fertility doctor to find out whether it's safe and possible for Michelle to get pregnant again.
The clip was previewed on the
Today show.
"We would love more children if God saw fit to give us more, I just want to make sure that I am ready to catch a baby if that would happen," Michelle Duggar says as she goes to see Paul Wendel, M.D., an OB-GYN in Little Rock, Arkansas, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.
The Duggars' youngest, Josie, was born three and a half months prematurely after Michelle had life-threatening preeclampsia. She's now a healthy 4-year-old. In 2011, the Duggars announced that Michelle was pregnant with their 20th child, but Michelle suffered a miscarriage that was discovered during a routine ultrasound at 19 weeks.
Michelle is now 47, and the risk of birth defects and complications rises with age, as Dr. Wendel notes.
"We do see occasionally pregnancies in women who are 47, 48, 49, even 50 but they are very unusual," he says.
In interviews with Today, Michelle said that the miscarriage was "devastating" but she would be open to having more children. The Duggars don't use birth control, leaving the number of children they have "up to God."
"19 Kids & Counting" airs Tuesdays on TLC.