Days: Nicole's Baby Dies

Nicole (Arianne Zucker) saw her life fall apart during a routine medical check, when she found out her fetus was dead on Days of Our Lives. This late term miscarriage is the fuel for story and below are my thoughts on it so far, spoilers and speculation are included so beware.

Nicole had been lying for months about the paternity of her child. With Daniel's (Shawn Christian) help, the DNA test was swapped and Rafe (Galen Gering) was seen as the biological parent. The child who was to be named after Daniel was conceived shortly before Nicole found out that her husband EJ (James Scott) cheated on her with his ex Sami (Alison Sweeney), while Johnny was missing.

My feelings on Nicole being pregnant for a second time were mixed. The character's last pregnancy was seen as miraculous, though she miscarried. While Nicole and EJ were committed, I wasn't really interested in seeing yet another plot in which EJ was kept from his child. Maybe it is just me or I feel like 85% of the stories EJ gets have to do with babies, it has gotten to be a bit redundant.

Nicole ended up moving in with Jennifer (Melissa Reeves), as Nicole really didn't have anywhere to go, and Daniel wanted her to be somewhere safe. Jennifer hasn't been acting like herself since Jack (Matthew Ashford) died. Jennifer figured out that Nicole was lying and felt that she was dragging Daniel into an abyss. Instead of minding her own business, she plead with Daniel to stop what he was doing, and would spend time yelling at Nicole. Due to the laws in Arizona, Daniel and Nicole planned to move to that state, so he could adopt the boy and EJ would be out of their lives. Sadly the baby was lost before this could happen.

After hearing a message that Jennifer left for Daniel, Nicole went to meet her at Horton Town Square. They got into a row and Nicole fell down the stairs. Brady (Eric Marstolf) and Billie (Lisa Rinna) saw the altercation, and it did look like Jennifer was guilty. She went into labor delivering a dead baby. What no one knows is that Nicole already knew the child had died in her womb. The computer system at the hospital was down, so her records weren't updated, so the doctors attended to her had no idea of the cause. Nicole sadly held her deceased child in her arms and said goodbye.

Next week it looks like EJ will find out his child died. I wonder who he will go after first in revenge. Those who were lying to him about the baby like Nicole, Rafe and Daniel or will he strike against Jennifer. While a woman having a baby die in their womb and then lying about when the child died has happened on soaps before (see Guiding Light circa 1997), I doubt they will copy that story fully. Other than losing the child, Daniel knew everything that was going on, and Nicole's actions were about protecting herself and the baby from EJ not about landing a man.

A lot of viewers are siding with Nicole, when I think we are supposed to feel sorry for Jennifer, Daniel and EJ who were all duped. I wasn't a fan of having Nicole get pregnant again, that said I didn't want her to have a nearly full term stillbirth. I wonder if Days had gone in this direction if there hadn't been a regime change. Hopefully this will be the last pregnancy story we will see for a time on Days, but I wouldn't bet on it. Hopefully this dark direction doesn't cause them to lose viewers, but I can see if someone loves Nicole why they would be frustrated due to this devastating loss.