Children of Passions - Jane Winthrop

Jane Winthrop

Unknown infants (2004-05)

Caleb and Jonah Gilpin (February—December 27, 2005)

Kacey Malmsten (2005 — December 11, 2006)

Camille and Kate Schwary (January 25, 2007—April 2008)

Jane Winthrop is the youngest child and daughter of Ethan Winthrop and Theresa Winthrop. Desperate to regain custody of her son, Little Ethan, who has been adopted by Ethan and his wife Gwen, Theresa replaces their planned surrogate and is implanted with their embryo. Shortly thereafter, Theresa fears that she has suffered a miscarriage and has therefore lost her way to win Little Ethan back, so she drugs and rapes Ethan, conceiving his child.

In August 2004, Theresa discovers that she is carrying twins - one that is Ethan and Gwen's child, and one that is hers with Ethan. By November, it becomes clear that Theresa cannot carry both children to term, and she is forced to abort the fetus with the lowest chance of survival. When she gives birth to a baby girl fourteen weeks early on December 2, 2004, Theresa is unsure as to whether she or Gwen is the mother; a DNA test at the end of the month proves that Theresa, not Gwen, is the girl's mother, and the aborted boy, whom Ethan and Gwen planned to name Nathan, was the Winthrops' child.

Gwen, whose daughter Sarah was stillborn the previous year and had found herself unable to have any more children, is devastated to learn that she has lost her last chance to be a mother. When Dr. Russell gives Gwen a sedative to calm her nerves, the medication interacts with some other medication she has taken, causing her to have a psychotic break. Gwen stabs Theresa in the back with a scalpel, briefly paralyzing Theresa, and is jailed. Ethan and Theresa are able to take their premature daughter home in January, when Theresa chooses to name her daughter Jane after her favorite book, Jane Eyre — Theresa identifies as Jane in a situation where Ethan represents Edward Rochester and Gwen his crazy wife, Bertha Mason.

Jane spikes a fever and is forced to return to the hospital; at the same time, Gwen senses that "her baby" is sick and slits her wrists so that she can return to the hospital. There, she kidnaps Jane, renames her Ashley, the name that she and Ethan had chosen, and flees, boarding one of the Cranes' private jets. Unfortunately for both Gwen and Jane, the plane is carrying Alistair's wife, Katherine Crane, to a remote compound, where the three are held captive. Fox Crane, Ethan, and Theresa rescue the three captives in April, and they return to Harmony, where Ethan agrees that he and Gwen will not sue for custody of Jane if Theresa refrains from pressing charges against Gwen for attempted murder.

Theresa, however, fears that Gwen and her mother, Rebecca, will retaliate first, so she presses charges against Gwen for attempted murder. Ethan is furious and successfully defends his wife, proving that she has acted under the influence of medications that had interacted badly. At the same trial, Ethan successfully lobbies for full, albeit temporary, custody of Jane. Theresa is devastated and vows to get her daughter back; to achieve her goal, she agrees to marry the program's main villain, Alistair Crane, who promises to help her win back Ethan and Jane. His promises are unsurprisingly false, and Theresa's only perk is that she, too, is able to live in the Crane mansion, where Ethan and Gwen live with Jane.

After Alistair falls into a coma, Theresa makes ploys for several months to break up Ethan and Gwen and win back Ethan and Jane; she prevents the Winthrops from moving to India and arranges for Gwen to find a job with an employer whom Theresa bribes to keep Gwen late at night away from Ethan and Jane. Theresa's bids stop once she finds out that Little Ethan is really Ethan's son; fearful that Ethan and Gwen will seize custody of her son, too, she lies to them about his true paternity and largely drops all efforts to win back Ethan and Jane. As a result, Gwen acts as Jane's mother for the first two years of Jane's life; after Gwen finds Ethan and Theresa in bed together early in 2007, Gwen leaves town and filed for divorce, despite the fact that doing so means that she will lose custody of Jane.

In late 2007, Ethan and Gwen's newborn son, Jonathan, is in dire need of a partial liver transplant, and Jane, as his older half-sister, is quickly tested and found to be a match. Despite being just shy of three years old, the doctors are confident that the procedure will not adversely affect her health in the future. Jane is ready to go into surgery when it is discovered that she has an ear infection; as a result, she is unable to be Jonathan's donor.

In August 2008, her parents, Ethan and Theresa, are finally married after Ethan's marriage to Gwen is revealed to be invalid.