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The prolific eerily calm Duggar family recently faced their biggest challenge ever. Their 19th child, Josie, was born four and a half months premature last December and weighed just 1lb, 6oz at birth. Josie was in a neonatal care unit for nearly four months, went home for two days, and then had another health crisis that required months more hospitalization. Josie came home last month, and has gained 10 pounds thanks to lactose-free formula necessitated by her . The Duggars have admitted how heart-wrenching and stressful it was to deal with Josie’s condition, but they’ve never ruled out having yet another child and say that’s up to God. (It’s up to them to practice birth control, but that never gets brought up in any of these interviews.) Most of the huge Duggar family was on The Today Show to promote their TLC reality show and premiere their newest baby. Despite the fact that Michelle is 43, could have died during her last pregnancy, and already has 19 kids she’s more than willing to pop out another one. She gave an enthusiastic “yes” to the question of whether they would have another baby. Now that Josie has been home for a month and is out of the woods I guess it’s time to try again. Radar Online has a good recap of the Duggar’s appearance:

“She is doing remarkable,” mom Michelle told host Meredith Vieira, adding that the baby, who was born December 10, 2009, is now up to 11 pounds, 6 ounces.

When Vieira asked about another health roadblock in the baby’s path — she is lactose intolerant — dad Jim Bob said the baby is “doing very well” with a modified diet including lactose-free formula, and “her health is thriving” as a result.

Michelle said that while the child is still using supplemental oxygen, it’s only when she sleeps. Jim Bob said that the baby should be caught up with her peers developmentally by the time she turns 2-years-old.

“Its amazing how well she’s doing, and we’re just so thankful to God that she’s thriving and doing well,” the proud papa said.

The conservative Christian family follows Quiverfull, a movement that places an emphasis on the Bible’s demands to be fruitful and multiply.

When Vieira asked Michelle if the problems with Josie would inhibit her from having more children, Michelle responded: “When we look at Josie — we were just talking about it this morning — knowing how we went through the challenge we did, we would do it again. Here we have this precious gift and its a miracle, it really is… the precious life we see here is not a coincidence.

“Its a miracle,” she said.

[From Radar]

Radar transcribed most of what Michelle said, but they didn’t add the part where she said “God is the one who gives life.” Some people believe that, and it’s fair enough. God is not the one who kept their premature infant alive for months when she was struggling to survive, that’s thanks to the science that these people are definitely not teaching their children. Thank goodness that Josie is thriving and is surrounded by so many people who love her. I’m just kind of flabbergasted that they would feel this way, but I suppose if they ever let reality influence their reproductive decisions they wouldn’t have 19 kids in the first place.