OutDaughtered stars Danielle and Adam Busby opened up about the unique parenting challenges posed by Danielle’s autoimmune disease battle.
“I used to not be able to get upstairs without feeling like I was gonna pass out,” Danielle, 39, exclusively told Us Weekly on Monday, July 10, while promoting the season 9 premiere of OutDaughtered. “That’s just not a norm for me. I was always athletic and kind of fit and we’ve always taken care of ourselves. So for my body to go so down, it just was alarming.”
Danielle began to notice something was wrong after giving birth to her and Adam’s quintuplets — Ava, Olivia, Hazel, Riley and Parker — in 2015. The couple also share daughter Blayke, now 12.
Danielle previously faced a series of infertility struggles, initially trying to conceive via IVF before Blayke’s 2011 arrival. She later opted for Femara — a prescription which increases fertility for patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) — which led to her first pregnancy.
When looking to expand their family again, Danielle went back on Femara and became pregnant with the quintuplets.
“After I had [them], my body never kind of recovered because it was nonstop movement. I was living a life of adrenaline for years,” Danielle explained. “So when my body started to slow down and they were in school and kindergarten — and well, first grade really — my body wasn’t used to this. And so I went into this shock.”
Danielle Busby and Adam Busby Courtesy Danielle Busby/Instagram
Danielle’s doctor “diagnosed” her with “migraines” and she was treated for “fibromyalgia” due to her muscular tension and inflammation. However, Danielle told Us her condition is still in “discovery” as she has good days and bad days.
“It’s hard sometimes to even explain what I’m feeling or how my body is reacting to something even in the view of Adam because he’s like, ‘You look fine, you [were] fine yesterday,’” she added. “It’s annoying, it’s frustrating and there’s days where I didn’t do anything extreme or off-set or something and [I] just will get up and I can’t move my hands and my feet and so … it’s an up and down journey.”
Adam, 41, told Us it’s “definitely tough” to see his wife struggle with her condition, but he remains “supportive” and tries to give Danielle everything she needs.
“That’s [the] thing with an autoimmune disorder. You don’t know what it is and you don’t know when it’s gonna flare up and there’s all these, like, unknowns,” he explained. “Like, one day she could be perfectly fine or … all of a sudden the next day she can hardly get out of bed.”
Despite her highs and lows, Danielle proudly told Us that as of Monday, she hadn’t had a migraine in “probably six months.”
The Busby family’s celebrations continue with the return of OutDaughtered after a two-year hiatus. The brood has starred on the TLC series since its inaugural season in 2016.
“We just picked up right where we left off,” Adam said of returning to the reality series. “It felt like old times and it was cool just to see, like, the crew members that returned this past season, just because they’re like family to us.”
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Season 9 of OutDaughtered premieres on TLC Tuesday, July 11, at 9 pm ET.
