Mother with 18 children all with 'J' names is pregnant again - and is expecting grandchild... to be christened with letter 'M'

A couple with 18 children all with names beginning with 'J' are to welcome another baby into the family – but this time the child will be christened with the letter 'M'.

Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, who revealed they are expecting their 19th child in March, will next month receive their first grandchild - Mackynzie Renee.

Their eldest son Josh and his wife Anna, both 21, will have the baby girl just nine months after his most recent sibling, Jordyn-Grace, was born.

America's biggest brood: The Duggar family near their home in Springdale, Arkansas

‘We are so thrilled,’ said Michelle, 42, of Springdale, Arkansas.

While Jim Bob, 44, a businessman and former state legislator, added: ‘This never gets old. We are so grateful for each child.

‘We are looking forward to our first grandbaby and our 19th child.’

Josh, who was home schooled and brought up as a devout Christian, said: ‘I think it is going to be awesome, it is going to be great.

‘We have been looking forward to the arrival of my little girl and to now get to celebrate for my parents, it’s a wonderful thing.’

He said he hoped to follow his parents’ lead in having many more children – but did not say whether they would also have names starting with the same letter or not.

Anna and Josh live with his parents in the debt-free house they built themselves along with twin siblings Jana and John-David, 19, Jill, 18, Jessa, 16, Jinger, 15, Joseph, 14, Josiah, 13, Joy-Anna, 11, twins Jedidiah and Jeremiah, ten, Jason, nine, James, eight, Justin, six; Jackson, five; Johanna, three, Jennifer, two, and Jordyn-Grace, eight months.



Their lives are featured on a reality TV show called 18 Kids and Counting.

Despite being pregnant 18 times before, Michelle says this pregnancy came as a shock.

‘I was in WeightWatchers with Jim Bob and I wasn’t losing any weight,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t figure it out. I was doing what I should. And the baby, who was nursing, was fussy. I kept thinking, “This isn’t right. She isn’t teething, she doesn’t have an ear infection. I’m not cheating on my diet, I should be losing weight.” Then, I put two and two together and wondered if I could possibly be pregnant.’

‘I told Jim Bob and he couldn’t keep it in, he was so excited,’ she said.

‘The kids were outside playing on a water slide and he gathered them together and had to share the news. There was all this screaming and yelling.’

Michelle has now been pregnant 147 months of her life, with five more to go.

The Duggars, who feed their brood by spending £1,250 a month, also claim that they have changed an estimated 90,000 nappies and do approximately 200 loads of laundry a month.

When they got married, they thought they’d have two or three children.

Not wanting to have a child immediately, Michelle went on the birth control pill as they waited three years to have their first child, Josh, who is now married and expecting his first child.

After Josh was born, Michelle went back on the pill.

She got pregnant anyway and suffered a miscarriage, which her physician told them was probably caused by the pill.

As conservative Christians, they decided after that to ‘let God decide’ how many children they would have.

They adhere to a movement called Quiverfull, whose members take seriously the biblical exhortation to be fruitful and multiply and believe that every child is a gift from Providence.