From EW

 

http://community.ew.com/2015/12/08/soap-opera-baby-switch/

 

 

Can someone explain to me the whole Shelia/Lauren thing?

Sheila was a nurse that began working at Genoa City Memorial in early 1990. She became infatuated with Dr. Scott Grainger, who was with Lauren Fenmore at the time. While Scott and Lauren were temporarily separated, Sheila took advantage of this, drugged Scott, and they had sex. Sheila fell pregnant, and Scott married her out of obligation to her and the baby. Lauren also fell pregnant with Scott's child at the same time. Sheila eventually miscarried, but she then concocted a plan: she managed to fake the rest of her pregnancy, and waited until Lauren's due date before supposedly leaving town to visit her mother in Michigan. She made arrangements with a lawyer, and purchased a baby boy on the black market, and after Lauren gave birth to her son, Sheila snuck into GC Memorial, changed the records of Lauren's newborn with the black market baby, and switched the two, and conveniently resurfaced in GC a day after also supposedly giving birth during a snowstorm in Michigan. Slowly over time though, her plan began to unravel. First, Sheila's mother Molly discovered her plot, and attempted to tell Lauren, but suffered a stroke, in Lauren's store no less. Paul and Lauren became very suspicious of this, and began their own investigation. And eventually, Dylan, the baby Lauren was raising, died of meningitis. Over time, Sheila's mother, who had been sent back to her farmhouse in Michigan under the supervision of two caretakers, began to get her speech back. Determined to keep the truth from being exposed, Sheila then fired the caretakers, kidnapped Lauren at gunpoint, and took her to the farmhouse in Michigan, and held her and Molly there for several episodes, and confessed to switching the babies, and that Lauren's son was very much alive. A fire then broke out at the farmhouse during a storm, and Lauren and Molly were left there to die, but they were saved by Paul and Lynne, while help eventually arrivied and a body was discovered, burned beyond recognition, presumed to be Sheila, when in reality it was a meter man, and Sheila had escaped in the man's truck and made her way to L.A.

I watched and enjoyed all this at the time, but re-reading it makes me wonder why Sheila had to switch babies? It would have been easier just to turn up with the black market baby and claim it was hers or was it because she wanted Scott's child in her possesion?

At the time ,I thought it would have been better for Lauren not to discover that Paul had faked his death and marry Scott in her grief.Then when Paul turns up alive,Scott would wonder how deep her feelings her feelings for him really are,thus setting up tension in the Grainger marriage and making Scott vulnerable to Sheila etc.

I think this best baby story I've seen(not necessarily a baby switch one) was Nina's. Tricia Cast and the late great Darlene Conley were golden in the story and it was written beautifully by William J. Bell. 

Yes! I wish the scenes of Nina holding the gun on rose were still on YT!

And then MAB had to louse it up by making Jeff Branson's waste of a character the kid.

The OLTL Jenny/Katrina switch was great. I remember when Peter Janssen was going to tell Jenny, but died in a car accident. It was a long-term story, well planned out

Wan't Tracey Bregman pregnant IRL and then miscarried? Then she had to play out the whole story including the baby' death. Or have I got that wrong?

Bill Bell stated at one point (maybe after that story)that he would never kill off a baby...too painful for viewers.

Yes, Sheila's introduction was her treating Lauren for her miscarriage, then a few months later Lauren and Sheila both became pregnant with Scott etc....

Well perhaps it was after Nikki and Jack's son was stillborn because of her falling down the stairs....then again I'm sure other women has miscarriages/stillborns even after that with him at the helm...(Nina comes to mind and later Victoria)

And then MAB had to louse it up by making Jeff Branson's waste of a character the kid.

It stayed a great mystery as to who Rose had given the baby to and what happened to it. I always wanted the story revisited but MAB totally ruined it. I don't recall if Darlene Conley was still alive when the story was brought up again. I would have been great to have her on again as evil Rose. Of course MAB would have ruined that too. 

Edited December 11, 20159 yr by Soapsuds

Bill Bell stated at one point (maybe after that story)that he would never kill off a baby...too painful for viewers.

IIRC, Bill Bell had made that promise after killing off Susan Martin's baby on DAYS.  However, he told SOW, he had good reasons for going back on that promise with Lauren (although I cannot remember what those reasons were).

The 1989 OLTL baby switch Gabrielle pulled with Michael Grande's dead son and Brenda McGillis' living son, from what I've seen of it on YT, is pretty good, if only because of Fiona.