Warning! This article contains spoilers for Chicago Fire season 14, episode 1.

The crew of Firehouse 51 is back for a new season, but there have been some shakeups in the casting, with Daniel Kyri’s long-term character Darren Ritter edging closer to the exit. But it was the shocking revelation that Stella and Severide lost their baby at the start of the episode, only for their social worker to inform them of a teen kicked out of a group home with nowhere to go.

In an interview with TV Insider, Newman unpacked the revelation, and the decision to have Stellaride lose the baby so soon after a failed adoption storyline. She likened the tragedy to the unexpected emergencies first-responders face, as well as stating that starting a family comes with challenges, and it was important to keep things real. Check out her comments below:

What This Means For Stellaride’s Chicago Fire Family Plans

Newman is right that trying to have kids and start a family is never easy, and it’s even more challenging when working intensive and dangerous jobs, like Stella and Kelly do. With all the drama the couple went through to get to this point, it feels cruel to take this away from them, but that is often true to life.

People experience tragedy and loss, and in the context of a TV show, this is a way of being able to add drama, pathos, and conflict to major characters. However, the nugget of hope follows after the tragedy, as the show sets up another adoption storyline for Stellaride, only this time with a teenager, which makes for an interesting dynamic.

Our Take On Stella & Severide’s Potential Adoption

In many ways, Stella and Kelly adopting a teen actually makes a lot more sense than a newborn. The dangerous and unrelenting nature of their jobs often means long hours, little downtime, and physical and mental toll, and none of this is conducive to raising a newborn. So adopting an older child could be a blessing for their Chicago Fire future