It is an exciting adventure following God. Jim Bob felt God wanted him to run for U.S. Senate in 2002.  On the day of the election, a photographer with the media ended up snapping a picture of our whole family walking into the polling place. We found that a few days later that picture ended up getting printed in the New York Times, with a caption stating that this candidate with a lot of kids ran for US Senate in Arkansas and lost.

Weeks later we received a phone call from a freelance writer that had seen the New York Times picture. She asked if she could write a story about our family for the “Ladies Home Journal”. She wrote the article and then the magazine decided not to run it. Months later the writer contacted us again and stated that “Parents Magazine” wanted to run the article and so they sent out a photographer to take a few family pictures.

Months later after that article ran we received a phone call from Bill Hayes with Figure 8 Films who said someone at Discovery Health Channel had seen the Parents Magazine and was asking if they could do a documentary about our family. We prayed about it and felt this would be an opportunity to share with the world that children are a blessing from God. We said the only way we would do it is if they did not edit out our faith, because that is the core of our lives.

They agreed and our first show called “14 Children and Pregnant Again!” ending up becoming the highest rated show ever on Discovery Health Channel. Then they came back and taped about 20 other shows for a TLC reality show series called “17 Kids and Counting” and now we are in the process of filming our second season. We also have had the opportunity to do hundreds of TV, newspapers, magazine & radio interviews with news crews from the US, Italy, Korea, UK, Australia, Russia and other countries around the world.

The main production company Figure 8 Films has been great to work with the last 5 years. They are like family, and our children are excited when they come over. We love going places and doing things as a large family and they follow along for the ride!