Who Is Dominic's Father On The Young And The Restless?
The story of Baby Dominic and how he came to be on "The Young and the Restless" is certainly a complicated one. And while it seems relatively clear on who his biological father is, one can never be certain on a soap opera and that question might be left open for years. But as of this writing, the baby has a lot of last names, as well as a large extended family of people who want to be his parents or have wanted to be his parents.
It all started when Abby Newman (Melissa Ordway) and Chance Chancellor (then played by Donny Boaz) decided to have a baby soon after getting married. When a pregnancy did not happen for Abby right away, she immediately went to a fertility doctor and learned her uterus could not hold a pregnancy due to damage from a prior miscarriage. While she learned her eggs were fine, Chance learned his sperm was not, but the government agent was called away on a secret mission before he and Abby had firmed up their alternate way of becoming parents. That didn't matter to Abby because she was going to have a baby no matter what it took, whether Chance was around or not.
Abby enlists her friends' help to have a baby
Abby knew she wanted whoever carried her child to be someone she knew so she asked her friend Mariah Copeland (Camryn Grimes) for the use of her uterus. After a bit of initial shock, Mariah agreed to be Abby's surrogate and when Abby's other friend, Devon Hamilton (Bryton James), learned what was going on, he volunteered the use of his sperm. Abby informed Chance what was going on via FaceTime and they proceeded, with legal agreement in hand that Abby and Chance would be this baby's parents.
The pregnancy seemed to go smoothly until Mariah was kidnapped towards the end and the culprit turned out to be Abby's ex-husband, Stitch Rayburn (Sean Carrigan). After Stitch guiltily led Abby and Devon to Mariah, Stitch took off not to be seen since and Devon ended up delivering baby Dominic, who was officially named Dominic Philip Newman Abbott Chancellor. While Mariah was attached to the baby for a while, she finally accepted he belonged to Abby. As Abby was also still alone with no husband, she turned to Devon more and more for help and that's where things got even more complicated.
Chance dies, but not for real
As "The Young and the Restless" is a soap opera, someone had to be presumed dead in this story and that task fell on Chance. Abby was devastated when she learned Chance had died in an explosion in Spain and leaned on Devon more than ever, telling him he was now the only dad that Dominic would ever know. When Abby couldn't handle her grief, she decided she needed to take off somewhere so she left the baby with Devon for days on end with no word as he became more and more attached to a baby that legally was not his.
Of course, Abby eventually found Chance (now played by Connor Floyd) alive, but suffering from PTSD. He was unable to bond with Dominic and Devon asked to take a more active role in the baby's life with Chance's blessing. Abby was against it until Devon threatened to take her to court, so she relented and allowed Devon one night of visitation and agreed to add Winters to Dominic's name, after Devon's late adoptive father and Abby's godfather, Neil Winters (Kristoff St. John). Then, Little Dom Six Names got sick and things got even more strange.
A medical mystery leaves questions about Dominic
Doctors found that Baby Dominic had a rare disease that needed a bone marrow transplant for treatment and Devon was found to be a total match. As that does not typically happen with parents and only sometimes with siblings, Abby and Devon were confused by how that could be. However, when Dominic was all well again, they just accepted it and moved on, leaving questions in viewers' minds.
How is Devon such a great bone marrow match for Dominic when he is supposed to be his father? Could there have been a mix up at the fertility clinic and someone else is Dom's dad? Could Stitch, a doctor, have had something to do with it? Did he switch out Devon's sperm for someone's else's — or even possibly his own? This remains a mystery and hopefully one the soap will one day solve.