Like most Orange is the New Black fans, I'm busy making my way through Season 4, which just dropped Netflix in June. The acclaimed and beloved dramedy series has a new batch of episodes filled with everyone's favorite complex characters and compelling storylines, but as I watch, I'm finding myself with one big question: Where is Daya's baby on Orange is the New Black ? After being perpetually pregnant for the first three seasons, Daya gave birth to Baby Armaria, but it's not totally clear where the daughter she had with former Correctional Officer John Bennett has ended up after Armaria's ne'er-do-well legal guardian Cesar was arrested in Season 3.
Armaria faced a tough road even before she was born. In Season 1, Daya ended up pregnant during her clandestine affair with Bennett. She was able to keep her pregnancy a secret for a little bit, but she needed to work fast to create a cover story for her bun in the oven in Season 2. If Litchfield found out that the baby belonged to Bennett, the CO would be imprisoned for rape, because of the power imbalance between them; Daya is not in a legal position to give consent as an inmate, as The Daily Beast reports. So Daya concocted a plan to frame the creepy CO George Mendez for rape, better known as Pornstache, which would get rid of the Litchfield creeper in addition to giving Daya a cover story for her baby bump.
And for awhile, it works. By Season 3, Daya's pregnancy is obvious, but everyone thinks that she is having a baby with Pornstache — including his mother, who offers to adopt the child. Daya considers this, since Bennett has disappeared without a trace, but decides against it when she realizes her incarcerated mother Aleida was trying to negotiate monthly payments for the baby. Daya comes clean and tells Delia that the baby doesn't have any Mendez DNA, while Aleida tells Delia that the baby is stillborn. When Daya finally gives birth, the baby is sent to live with Cesar, the man whose illegal activities got Aleida and Daya into Litchfield in the first place.
But that home doesn't last long for little Armaria, as the DEA catches Cesar and arrest him. The baby is taken into custody with the state, along with Aleida's other children, and, as of the start of Season 4, no one knows what has happened to the little baby girl. Is she in foster care? Is she stuck in the system? In Season 4, Episode 3, it's stated as one of Daya's big fears. "Kids that go into the system is like flushing a goldfish down the toilet,” Daya says. "They don’t swim back up." And once it's confirmed that Cesar is headed to prison, Aleida knows her grandchild is now part of the very institution she and Daya feared.
As Aleida faces a potential for early release in the fourth season, the question of Armaria's whereabouts looms heavy. Can the inmate make a life for herself outside of Litchfield, in addition to tracking down her other children and her grandchild? Only time will tell.
Images: JoJo Whilden (2), Jessica Miglio/Netflix
