Back in May, Joy-Anna Duggar married Austin Forsyth in the kind of massively attended ceremony for which her family has become known.
Just three months later (like, exactly 12 weeks and a few days later), Joy-Anna announced that she was pregnant with her first child.
The announcement came as somewhat of a surprise, as Joy-Anna is just 19, and getting pregnant within hours of getting hitched?
That amounts to moving quickly even by Duggar standards; Jessa and Jill Duggar didn’t even get down to business quite that fast.
(Naturally, there are those who believe Joy-Anna got pregnant before her wedding, but that’s a conversation for another time.)
Given that Duggar women are generally discouraged from entering the workforce, it would seem that Joy’s future is pretty much set in stone.
Obviously, she’ll be Austin’s wife.
Divorce is strictly forbidden in their world, so she’s in it for life, even if things go south (just ask Anna Duggar … again, for another time).
She’ll probably raise a massive brood of oddly-named children; Joy has expressed fondness for growing up in such a huge family.
(The Duggar women all seem to be in a race to out-breed one another, and they’ve shown a fondness for "unique" monikers like Spurgeon.)
But Joy-Anna may have more in mind for her future than a lifetime of casseroles and runny noses and other household-running events.
Another family pastime may have piqued her interest.
Many observers believe that she’s being groomed to follow her in her father Jim Bob’s footsteps and enter the world of politics.
Back in February – a few months before she became a wife and expectant mother – Joy-Anna interned at the Arkansas House of Representatives.
Her brother, Jedidiah Duggar, also landed an internship, but it was Joy-Anna’s presence there that fans were really interested in.
Duggar women are generally not encouraged to pursue any sort of career path, so this stood out more than you might expect.
The fact that she was permitted to take such a high-profile internship, led many to believe that the Duggars were hanging their future political hopes on Joy.
The family has long been open about their desire for political clout, but in the past, those dreams have gone unrealized.
From 1999-2002, Jim Bob served Arkansas’ 6th District in the State House of Representatives but left his post in order to run for the U.S. Senate.
His campaign crashed before it left the ground, however, as the Duggar patriarch was trounced in the primaries by fellow GOP candidate Tim Hutchison.
Jim Bob and Michelle’s eldest son Josh Duggar briefly worked as a lobbyist in Washington, but his career was derailed for other reasons.
Revelations that Josh had molested five girls in his younger years and cheated on long-suffering wife Anna sort of ended that aspiration.
Talk of Joy’s political future had died down a bit before and right after her wedding, but it’s picked up again in recent weeks.
Thanks in part to politically charged social media posts from herself and Austin, she has no issue putting herself out there.
Joy’s big pregnancy update earlier this month was part of a post espousing the Forsyths’ political views, for example.
Obviously, it’s too early to say if the 19-year-old has a future in the political arena, but it seems pretty clear that she’s headed in that direction.
As always, you can follow the link to watch Counting On online for much more from reality TV’s most controversial family.