Duggars: Miscarriage was ‘devastating’

>>> back now with the duggers. their hit reality show "19 kids and counting" returns tonight, a season that will deal with the family's recent miscarriage tragedy. we'll talk to jim bob and michelle in just a moment. but first, their story. if you're not familiar with the name dugger , you probably know them as the family with 19 children. america was introduced to the dugger 's through their reality show . which documents the fun, excitement, even the highs and lows of family has experienced including the premature birth of their baby josie who recently celebrated her second birthday.

>> say thank you.

>> thank you.

>> bible says that children are a blessing from the lord.

>> reporter: the dugger 's appeared on "today" more than ten times, most recently in november when they announced this news.

>> we are expecting our 20th child. yes! yes! we are due in april. and just thrilled.

>> reporter: but only a month later, jim bob and michelle were devastate the as the show's camera followed them to a routine visit with their doctor.

>> she wasn't able to find a heartbeat. the pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage and now jim bob and michelle try pick up the pieces and move forward. jim bob and michelle dugger , good morning to you.

>> good morning.

>> miscarriages are harder on women than most people realize. it's been eight weeks?

>> yes.

>> what do you want to say about it? how are you doing?

>> oh, i think just the, you know, the joy of looking forward to a new little life being in our family and then going to a routine ultrasound and finding out that our baby had no heartbeat, that's devastating. and i think many others have experienced very similar situations because we've heard from so many others. and i think probably the hardest part is when a loss like this occurs, people really don't know what to say. they want to be sensitive and not make you hurt more, but at the same time when you don't say anything, that's difficult, too. and so we just -- we realize our sweet little jubilee is with the lord. we will see her again some day. and we have, you know, ten girls and ten boys just we only have our nine girls here and ten boys that are here with us and i think we have a sweet memory of our little jubilee for 18 weeks. we enjoyed having her with us. and we're looking forward to her and now we look forward to her in heaven.

>> and i know husbands are very important to help a mother get through this. any thoughts about what you've learned about how to help a wife get through something like this?

>> i you this our whole family grew closer together through this experience. i think we cried a lot. we prayed a lot. and god gave us the grace to get through. i don't see how somebody can get through this without faith in god.

>> he makes us really cherish the moment that's we have together with each other. t the ones that are here, you don't take for granted.

>> part of what you're cherishing is being grandparents now.

>> yes.

>> how is that? how does being a grandparent compare tok being a parent?

>> it 's wonderful . we heard so many wonderful thin things. now we know why it's so great. you don't have all the responsibility of diapers and keeping up with everything. it is great. it is so much fun.

>> congratulations on that.

>> thank you.

>> and i need to ask you about this extortion thing. this woman allegedly tried to extort money from the discovery channel , tlc's parent company , apparently claiming she had scandalous photographs of your niece amy with a much older man. now i understand this woman has been arrested. what do you know about this? what response do you have given that this has been widely reported already?

>> we're basically, we just received it off the network saying they received this letter from a lady and included her name, home address, her phone number and bank account number. wanted they will to send her $10,000. they contacted the fbi. and, anyway, they did a sting operation . she just had some pictures of kind of this guy that amy knows, a family friend, standing beside each other. the pictures were just of no, you know, no substance at all. but she just -- i guess she had mental issues or something. we pray she can get her life straightened out. i think she's been arrested.

>> meantime, on a very different note. i notice that your family, all your kridz not heids are not here. you're just having a night by yourself. valentine's day. a romantic night in new york city . we know you're trouble.

>> that's right.

>> so are you happy -- i love that you're laughing about this.

>> this is an unusual thing for us to be without all of the kids. and so, it's going to be -- we'll go to a nice restaurant and have a nice valentine's before we head home and would be the kids again.

>> yeah. enjoy this time together and have a little bit of quiet before you hit the storm of having a house full of kids. thank you so much for being here this morning. we want to mention that the season premier of "19 kids and counting" airs to night on tlc. so thanks so much.