The quiver is full: metonymy and affiliation in 19 Kids and Counting’s depiction of pregnancy loss in advanced maternal age

Abstract

This investigation into the cultural dynamics of gendered, aging bodies attends to a mediated representation of what contemporary biomedicine defines as pregnancy in “advanced maternal age” (AMA). We offer a feminist rhetorical analysis of an episode of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting entitled “A Duggar Loss,” where 45-year-old matriarch Michelle Duggar experiences pregnancy loss. In the episode, age is reconfigured in discussions of AMA pregnancy through a metonymic substitution and slippage of risk discourses, pre-natal self-care, and technological interaction. Moreover, “A Duggar Loss” mobilizes strategies of expansive affiliation around and through reproductive choice, which appears to align with feminist principles of reproductive autonomy despite the family’s ties to the Quiverfull Movement. This work contributes to feminist studies of aging bodies by suggesting that representations of advanced maternal age pregnancy remain a central, yet undertheorized subject in formulating powerful trans-ideological affiliations that can undermine progressive reproductive politics.

Keywords:

• Advanced maternal age
• miscarriage
• the Duggars
• Quiverfull
• pathos
• metonymy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Caitlin Bruce, Nicole Castro, Laurel Foote-Hudson, Michaela Frischerrz, Eileen Hammond, Zachary Parker, Lisa Silvestri, Kim Singletary, Atilla Hallsby, and James Alexander McVey for their feedback on this manuscript. We also extend our gratitude to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback. The authors are co-first authors and contributed equally to this manuscript’s production.