Days of Our Lives sees Sophia Choi (Rachel Boyd) thinks she got away with it. She lied about the date of birth and the sex of her baby, and she got those fake adoption papers signed. She is ready to put this teen mama drama behind her and head off to college. But I suspect her secret is outed by someone who’s not really on her radar as a risk.
Days of our Lives: Sophia Scrambling to Get Her Life Back
Since going into labor all alone three weeks ago, Sophia has been on this wild ride trying to get her life back and cover her tracks. Sophia went from giving birth to dropping her baby in a box. But she did it in a way to protect her newborn son.
Then she and DA Melinda Trask (Tina Huang) cooked up a plan to cover it all up and redirect any suspicions away from Tesoro, Sophia’s little boy.
Right now, he’s in short-term foster care with Javi Hernandez (Al Calderon) and Leo Stark (Greg Rikaart). With Melinda’s help, they altered the birth date by a couple of weeks and the sex of the infant.
Of course, poor Tate Black (Leo Howard) is devastated by Sophia’s news that she gave birth to their baby girl in Chicago and that the adoptive parents whisked the newborn away right after she gave birth.
Tate is horrified that he will never get to meet or hold his daughter. When Sophia told Tate and Brady Black (Eric Martsolf) about the birth and the quick adoption in Chicago, they were stunned.
At first, Tate was refusing to sign the papers. But Sophia guilt-tripped him about not answering her call when she was in labor, and he was already feeling guilty for planning that lake trip with her being so close to going into labor.
Manipulation and Deception in Days of Our Lives: Sophia’s Lies and Tate’s Heartbreak
All the stuff Sophia is saying is a manipulative lie. But Tate doesn’t know it. Brady is also feeling sorry for Sophia, and he knows she has unreciprocated feelings for Tate. I feel like Brady didn’t advocate enough for Tate because he also fell for Sophia’s manipulation.
Then again, Brady is also the guy who thought he was knocking up Nicole Walker (Arianne Zucker) when it was Kristen DiMera (Stacy Haiduk) in a mask—not the most observant guy in Salem, to be honest.
I could have jumped through the TV screen when Tate caved and signed the phony adoption papers. I wanted to ring Brady’s neck. He just stood there and watched his son sign away his rights knowing full well Tate’s heart was set on meeting his child.
He didn’t even say, “Hey, let’s just slow it up for just a minute.” Bottom line, it’s not just Sophia who has rights and feelings about this baby. Tate was crushed. He’s got no closure. While the fake picture Sophia showed him helped Tate kind of grasp it a little, it’s too little too late on Days of our Lives.
Just a little glimpse of his daughter isn’t enough. Sophia claimed it was adoptive parents and their newborn daughter being held by her new mom and dad. Come on. To me, it looked like something that was in a photo frame at the store or like a stock photo, and it probably was.
Hidden Truths and Foster Care: The Real Story Behind Sophia’s Baby in Salem
Little does Tate know, but his son is right there in Salem. Not a daughter. But a son who’s being fostered by Javi and Leo. This is where a second chance could come for Tate to meet his child and for Sophia’s shady actions to be exposed.
Before all that, I want to defend her for just a second. She’s very young. She’s very scared. The guy she loves doesn’t love her. The pregnancy wasn’t planned. She intended to terminate the pregnancy, and her overbearing mom Amy Choi (She Ni Neilson) dragged her forcibly down this road she didn’t want to be on.
Obviously, whenever you do the deed, there’s a risk of pregnancy, and adults know that she was a teenager. It was just a whole bunch of bad decisions, and it’s been a mess for some time. Sophia is still not making great decisions and she’s under the influence of Melinda, who’s shady as heck.
But in her defense, Melinda is trying to help Sophia make lemonade out of a very lemony situation because Melinda had a teen pregnancy that was very messy.
Investigative Drama in Salem: Leo’s Role in Uncovering Sophia’s Secret Baby
I do suspect it could be one of Tesoro’s foster guardians who actually figures out Sophia’s secret. Soon, she gets that heartfelt letter that Sophia wrote over to the firehouse. Javi is going to bring that letter home, and he and Leo are going to read it to baby Tesoro.
The safe haven drop box is supposed to be anonymous, so I think Javi’s going to wonder who dropped it there. Who is the mother? I don’t think he’s going to dig further than just passing concern. That’s not his place.
But his boyfriend Leo is an investigative journalist with very deep mommy and daddy issues. He may dig into the mystery without telling Javi, especially since Leo is so bummed he can’t keep digging into the “Who Shot EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel)?” mystery because he’s on the jury at Johnny DiMera’s (Carson Boatman) trial.
Days of our Lives: Leo Starts Investigating
First, Leo could take the letter to an independent crime lab to see if there are any fingerprints or DNA on it. Second, he might run into Tate, who’s totally bummed, and Tate may tell Leo Sophia had the baby out of state, showing him the picture that he was given. Leo might notice that something is off about the picture and just think it all sounds strange.
If Brady happens to mention Melinda’s name, that might really catch Leo’s attention because he knows how shady Melinda is. He doesn’t like her after she bought Julie Williams’ (Susan Seaforth Hayes) necklace and then hawked it to avoid police attention.
Leo could easily do a reverse image search on that picture Sophia gave Tate and find out it’s a stock photo. Leo shouldn’t be able to get into any adoption records because they’re sealed. But he could make inquiries at the hospital in Chicago about a teen girl giving birth. If Leo finds out Sophia didn’t pop out the kid there, that’s a big deal.
Days of our Lives: Sophia Fears Her Secret Will Be Discovered
It’s pretty much too late now for Sophia to get Tesoro back because it’s been past the 14 days. Sophia is definitely past the time limit since she dropped the baby. But Tate might actually have a longer grace period because he didn’t know about any of it, including that the baby was dropped.
But he’s not looking in that direction. He thinks he’s got a daughter that was born two weeks later. We all know Leo’s relentless, and maybe he is simultaneously working on who Tesoro’s mother is. Then he finds out this stuff from Tate and starts looking for where Tate’s daughter is.
He starts to see that their things are intertwined and overlapping. Don’t forget Sophia is also paranoid somebody will realize Tesoro is half Asian and that might be a clue. Also, if Leo sees just how devastated Tate is, we could see Leo trying to find the adoptive parents so at least Tate can meet his daughter and say goodbye.
Days of our Lives: Leo Uncovers the Truth?
If Leo is working on both sides of this—one way to be nosy and one way to try and help Tate—he could figure out Sophia’s huge secret. I do suspect Leo is going to be curious about Tesoro’s mom. But he may start digging into this from the other side on Tate’s behalf.
Heck, maybe even Brady asks Leo if he can help his son just to get some closure. Brady may have some grudging respect for Leo’s investigative work. We’ll see how it goes. But secrets usually don’t stay secret for long in Salem.
