The One Chicago universe has run its course for this broadcast season, which means that Chicago Fire Season 13 has aired its season finale. As far as romance was concerned across the franchise, we had more beautiful endings than sad climaxes. With the firefighting crew at Firehouse 51, there was some interesting and unexpected news for one of its foremost couples. Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) and her husband, Kelly Severide’s (Taylor Kinney), have been an item for a while now, and in recent times, the pair began considering expanding their family unit. The most likely path to achieving this was via adoption, as Kidd made it clear she’d not like to get pregnant. However, in the Season 13 finale, the show threw up a surprise: Stella was pregnant!

Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman was quizzed on why the show decided to close out the season with an unexpected pregnancy. In previous seasons, the show had explored adoption storylines with Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) and Joe Cruz (Joe Miñoso), and also Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund) and Matt Casey’s (Jesse Spencer) relationship. So did the course change have anything to do with that? “It wasn’t so much that, because it’s amazing,” Newman explains to TV Line, “if you Google “firefighter adoption,” how many firefighters have adopted kids, babies, children they’ve helped in the line of duty, which is amazing to me and always such beautiful stories. So we didn’t worry so much about the repetition of that.”

Kidd Has Been on Quite a Journey Towards Parenthood

So what inspired the change? A desire to develop a unique character arc for Stella. “It was more about the journey of Kidd’s character, to getting to a place where she decided that both of those things, she was open to, all of a sudden. If that baby had worked out at the hospital, they would have taken it home and been the most loving, wonderful parents to it, and like happens sometimes and happened to one of our writers, they adopted and then surprisingly got pregnant.” Newman goes on to explain that something similar had occurred to another beloved character, saying:

“That’s what happened, by the way, with Cruz. He had a baby and then along came Javi. So sometimes, life just gets messy in that way, and we love living in that space, too. So that could happen with Severide and Kidd. You never know.”

Stella and Kidd have been on quite a journey towards parenthood. In Season 13, Episode 20, “Cut Me Open,” the pair tried to bond with a newly born child which they hoped to adopt. However, while that did not exactly play out as planned, it’d be interesting to see how the couple cope next season, as 51 seems on the cusp of major shakeups.

Tune in to NBC this Fall to watch Chicago Fire Season 14 and see how Stella and Kelly cope with this new change. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.