Joy-Anna Duggar’s husband, Austin Forsyth, was against TLC filming her labor and delivery for Counting On.
“I don’t remember us having really big, like, ‘Oh, no, y’all can’t show this or whatever,’” [but] we did push back about having Gideon,” Forsyth, 31, said of his eldest son’s birth on the Wednesday, February 19, episode of the “Jinger and Jeremy” podcast. “I didn’t want any film crew there. I took a lot of heat for that.”
Joy-Anna —one of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children — married Forsyth in 2017. The pair welcomed son Gideon in 2018, daughter Evelyn in 2020 and son Gunner in 2023.
“That’s something which [Joy-Anna’s sisters] Jessa and Jill, I believe, had already had Spurgeon and Israel [on the show], so I should have thought about it,” he recalled. “It’s not something that, as a single guy, crossed my mind like, ‘One day, I’m going to have to make the decision if I’m going to have the network with cameras in our face.’ There’s a lot you just don’t know how [to navigate].”
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According to Forsyth, dealing with TLC contracts helped bring him and Joy-Anna, 27, even closer as a couple.
“She’s everything I could have dreamt of and way more,” he said. “It’s amazing that you think you know what you need and then God slowly reveals who you actually need. She’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me outside of Salvation.”
Joy-Anna’s courtship with Forsyth was featured on the family’s TLC docuseries, culminating in their wedding. For Forsyth, it was an adjustment to being featured on TV.
“I didn’t really trust the producers or the camera guys — not that the camera guys really had anything to do with the production,” Forsyth claimed. “I remember the producer telling me, ‘It used to be so hard getting stuff out of you and you always seemed like we were trying to trap you or you always would think a long time about your answers and we just wanted something spontaneous.’”
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While Forsyth isn’t sure “why” he acted so guarded during his initial filming experience, he did want to “really be careful” with his words when and if they were being recorded for television.
Since Counting On ended in 2021, Joy-Anna and Forsyth have enjoyed a more private lifestyle away from the limelight.
“It feels like a different life, almost,” he told sister-in-law Jinger Duggar and her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, on Wednesday’s episode. “Like, we have three kids and just so much has happened over the last five years. It’s like, ‘Wow, I guess we did do that.’”
