The Internet Has Some Paranoid Questions About Jill Duggar's Pregnancy

Jill Duggar was pregnant practically ten minutes after her wedding reception, and now she’s publicly tracking her prenatal progress via social media—down to the day. This week’s update put her at 93 days pregnant. But she’d only been married 90 days. STOP THE PRESSES, CALL YOUR OFFICE: DO WE HAVE EVIDENCE OF DIRTY PREMARITAL DUGGAR DOINS?

We do not. Sorry to disappoint.

Apparently this has become a conspiracy theory of such proportions (oh, fleet-footed rumor!) that E! was required to publish a long explanation of how pregnancies are counted. Headline: “Pregnant Jill Duggar Got Married 90 Days Ago, But Is 93 Days Along: Here’s Why That Doesn’t Mean She Had Premarital Sex.” (This was tagged as “news.”) They turned to, um, JustMommies.com for the science:

When it comes to calculating conception, “the counting begins with the first day of your last normal menstrual period before you got pregnant. In other words, the counting begins about two weeks before you have even conceived,” JustMommies.com explains.

That’s because you can’t really nail down when a woman actually conceived—it’s most straightforward to count from something as obvious as your period. Now you all know the last time Jill Duggar menstruated. I’m so glad we had this little chat. I think we’ve all learned something here! But in case the implications aren’t clear enough for you, let E! sum everything up:

So in Duggar’s case, she is 13 weeks along, which means they probably actually conceived the baby about 11 weeks ago, concluding that she was already married (barely, but still) when they had sex. Mystery solved! Whew.

So we have no evidence of bald-faced hypocrisy, just more information than anybody ever needed about when a young married couple is coupling. Please return to your regularly scheduled program of mocking Jill and her husband Derick for putting FUCKING DR. PEPPER on their baby registry.

Why anyone beyond her immediate family cares about this girl’s uterus is another, deeper mystery of American culture, one beyond the purview of a Friday-morning blog post.